Opinion ID: 175811
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Lands Council

Text: The dissent argues that our decision in this case is inconsistent with our recent en banc decision in The Lands Council v. McNair, 537 F.3d 981 (9th Cir.2008) (en banc). We disagree. We wrote in Lands Council that our proper role is simply to ensure that the [agency] made no `clear error of judgment' that would render its action `arbitrary and capricious.' Id. at 993. In Lands Council, we insisted that agencies support and explain their conclusions with evidence and reasoned analysis. Id. at 994, 998. Lands Council involved a challenge to a logging project proposed by the Forest Service. There were three NEPA issues. First, plaintiff Lands Council argued that the Forest Service had fail[ed] to include a full discussion of the scientific uncertainty surrounding its strategy for maintaining species viability. Lands Council, 537 F.3d at 1002 (internal quotation omitted). Second, Lands Council argued that the Forest Service did not cite adequate evidence that the Project will improve the habitat of old-growth species. Id. Third, Lands Council argued that the Forest Service did not adequately examine adverse impacts from logging within old-growth stands. Id. We concluded that these three arguments failed and that the Forest Service had taken the requisite `hard look' at the environmental impacts of the Project. Id. at 1003. The NEPA issue in the case now before us is quite different from the NEPA issues in Lands Council. Instead of alleged failures to discuss scientific uncertainty, to cite adequate evidence, or to examine adverse impacts, as in Lands Council, the issue in our case is a failure to make a meaningful comparison among alternatives before the agency. It is black-letter law under NEPA that such a comparison is required. See 40 C.F.R. § 1502.14 (As the heart of the environmental impact statement, the EIS should present the environmental impacts of the proposal and the alternatives in comparative form, thus sharply defining the issues and providing a clear basis for choice among the options by the decisionmaker and the public.). We so indicated in Lands Council: The EIS must include statements on: ... alternatives to the proposed action. Lands Council, 537 F.3d at 1001. We concluded in Lands Council that an adequate comparative analysis had been conducted. Id. at 1003. There is nothing in the record supporting the BLM's assumption that the MPO process would make no difference in the manner in which Asarco would perform mining operations on the selected lands. Instead, there is much in the record indicating precisely the opposite. We will not repeat here everything we have written above, but we note a few things. We note that an extremely dismayed EPA objected to the draft EIS, complaining, It is also evident that all reasonable alternatives have not been evaluated and that impacts of foreseeable activities on the selected lands have not been sufficiently addressed in the DEIS. The FEIS was not changed in response to this objection. Further, we note that the EPA objected to the FEIS, writing that there was no support for the assumption that Asarco would mine in the same fashion whether or not it was required to prepare MPOs. The BLM failed to respond to this objection. Still further, we note that in her concurring opinion for the IBLA, Administrative Judge Hammer pointed out that the record contains detailed information about the nature of Asarco's planned mining operations that made foreseeable impacts more easily presentable in a manner not easily found in this EIS and less speculative than BLM suggests. Finally, we note that the Department of Interior, of which the BLM is a part, successfully argued in Mineral Policy Center that MPOs provide meaningful environmental protection beyond that provided by other laws. In light of Interior's successful argument in Mineral Policy Center, we can hardly be expected to take at face value Interior's and the BLM's contrary argument, in the case now before us, that the MPO process provides no such environmental protection. Our dissenting colleague makes a number of general statements. He says that we have disingenuously removed material from our prior opinion, Dissent at 651; that we are attempting to mask [our] creation of a new substantive rule, id. at 652-53; that we are attempting to judicially legislate, id.; that we provide selective and somewhat misleading presentation of the facts, id. at 654 n. 4; that our opinion solely focuses on an isolated phrase from the record, taken entirely out of context, id. at 657; that our rumination is unaccompanied by any factual basis from the administrative record, id. at 658; that we impose a novel NEPA requirement steeped in mystery, id. at 660; that we make a false statement that the BLM failed to make a meaningful comparison, id. at 660; that we attempt to regulate agency action by judicial fiat, id. at 661; that we grossly overstep our role, id. at 662; and that we have sacrificed the integrity of our precedent and the best interests of the public, id. at 665. But our colleague has no response to the fact that an extremely dismayed EPA objected that the BLM did not perform an adequate environmental analysis in the draft EIS. His only response to the fact that the BLM did not reply to the EPA's statement that the FEIS was wrong in assuming that Asarco would mine in the same way, whether or not it prepared MPOs, is to quote language replying to another objection. His only response to the fact that Administrative Judge Hammer wrote a concurrence stating that the BLM possessed sufficiently detailed information to provide a more thorough environmental analysis is to point out that she was writing a concurrence. Id. at 664 n. 9. His only response to the fact that the position taken by Interior and the BLM in this litigation is flatly inconsistent with the position taken by Interior in Mineral Policy Center is to deny the existence of the inconsistency. Id. at 658-59 n. 6. Our colleague states that the BLM found that the environmental consequences of the proposed exchange would be similar to those of the no-action alternative. He writes, [T]he BLM reached the logical conclusion that, to the extent foreseeable, the environmental impacts would be in many ways similar under the various alternatives. Id. at 658 (emphasis added). He writes, further, [The BLM's] expertise led it to believe that the environmental consequences would be similar whether Asarco mined on public or private land. Id. at 658-59 n. 6 (emphasis added). See also id. at 658-59 (ultimate mining-related activities would be substantially similar ); id. at 658-59 n. 6 (the BLM's position herethat environmental impacts would be similar under the various alternatives); id. (The BLM's conclusion that Asarco's mining-related activities would be similar ) (emphases added). Our colleague errs in so stating. The core problem in this case is that the BLM assumed that the environmental impacts of the proposed exchange and of the no action alternative would be the same. Our colleague writes that our opinion is based on a distaste for the particular industrial goals at issue. Dissent at 659. This is not true. We express no view indeed, we have no viewon the question whether the proposed land exchange is a good or bad idea. That question is not properly before us. But our colleague has a very definite view. In his view, the land exchange is beneficial. Dissent at 651-52. In his view, the offered lands ... are undisputably superior in almost all respects (except for mineral deposits) to the selected lands. Id. at 665. In his view, our approach is not only legally untenable. Id. at 665. It is also impractical, misguided, and contrary to the best interests and welfare of the public at large. Id. We confine ourselves to the legal questions before us. We continue to adhere to the standard of deference to agency action we articulated in Lands Council. But we are not compelled to deferindeed, we are compelled not to deferwhen an agency has acted arbitrarily and capriciously. In this case, we conclude that the BLM acted arbitrarily and capriciously in assuming without explanation that the MPO process is a meaningless formality that provides no environmental protection and, based on that assumption, in failing to make a meaningful comparison between the proposed land exchange and the no action alternative.