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

Heading: Subsequent Actions

Text: We next consider other potential methods for determining NEPA’s requirements for an action that is separated from an EIS by the passage of time. As background, NEPA regulations provide two frameworks within which additional NEPA analysis may occur after an initial EIS is finalized: namely, tiering and supplementation. Tiering refers to the incorporation by reference in subsequent EISs or EAs, which concentrate on issues specific to the current proposal, of previous broader EISs that cover matters more general in nature. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.28. Supplementation refers to the process of updating a previous EIS in situations where the agency makes substantial changes to the proposed action, or there are significant new circumstances or information. Id. § 1502.9(c). The NEPA regulations do not provide any express guidance for determining whether to prepare a tiered NEPA analysis or a supplemental NEPA analysis in borderline cases. See Daniel R. Mandelker et al., NEPA Law & Litig. § 9:12 (2d ed., Aug. 2019 update).
To support their respective contentions about what type of NEPA analysis was required for the 2017 lease sale, Plaintiffs and Defendants rely in part on cases which imply that the relevant inquiry is whether the previous EIS adequately analyzed the impacts of the subsequent action. We decline to take this approach. In Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. Blackwood, we concluded that the Forest Service’s previous programmatic forest plan EIS did not obviate the need for an EIS for several proposed timber salvage sales in an area NAEC V. USDOI 25 burned by a large wildfire. 161 F.3d 1208, 1210, 1214 (9th Cir. 1998). The Forest Service argued that its EA for one of the salvage sales was sufficient given that it tiered to the forest plan EIS for additional analysis. Id. at 1214. We disagreed, finding that the forest plan EIS analysis was inadequate because it “d[id] not, and could not, evaluate the impacts of this catastrophic fire, or the additional environmental impacts that large scale logging of severely burned areas could bring.” Id. Plaintiffs here also allege significant developments that could not have been evaluated in the 2012 EIS because they did not take place until later. Our decision in Blue Mountains is of little utility to us in evaluating this case, however, because the fact that the proposed timber salvage sales constituted a new project was not in dispute. 14 Instead, the dispute focused on whether the EA for the new project contained sufficient analysis. Here, BLM did not prepare a contemporary NEPA analysis (such as an EA) for the 2017 lease sale. Rather, BLM argues that the 2012 EIS did contemplate the 2017 lease sale and already performed the necessary analysis. In Pit River Tribe, the plaintiffs challenged a 1998 geothermal lease extension in the volcanic Medicine Lake Highlands in California. The agencies involved had prepared a nationwide programmatic EIS in 1973, which “d[id] not adequately address the potential impacts of leasing.” 469 F.3d at 783. Subsequently, the agencies prepared EAs in 1981 and 1984 which considered leases but did not consider the impacts of “actual geothermal development.” Id. at 784. The agencies then issued leases in 1988 which did not reserve an absolute right to prohibit 14 Furthermore, the timber salvage sales involved surface-disturbing activities, making them more analogous to oil and gas permits for exploration or development than to oil and gas leases. Id. at 1210. 26 NAEC V. USDOI development. Id. Because the statute of limitations had run, the plaintiffs challenged only the 1998 extensions of those leases, and not the original 1988 leases. Id. at 781. The agencies argued that they had completed the required NEPA analysis in 1973, 1981, and 1984. Id. We disagreed, and concluded that the agencies were required to prepare a new EIS for the 1998 lease extensions. Id. at 784. Pit River Tribe illustrates that the adequacy of analysis in previous NEPA documents for the present action may influence whether we construe those NEPA documents as covering the present action. Relatedly, Pit River Tribe shows that adequacy may remain relevant even after the statute of limitations has run. However, it appears that the agencies in Pit River Tribe conceded that the lease extensions constituted a new action, arguing rather that a new NEPA analysis was unnecessary because the leases only maintained the status quo. See id. We held that the extensions did not simply maintain the status quo because they granted a new right to additional years of development which had not been granted previously. Id. In Mayo v. Reynolds, the D.C. Circuit considered a NEPA claim where the plaintiff alleged that the National Park Service “was required to issue a new EA or EIS” for each year’s proposed elk hunting authorization pursuant to a fifteen-year elk-reduction program in Grand Teton National Park. 875 F.3d 11, 14, 19 (D.C. Cir. 2017). The Park Service argued that it had prepared the required analysis in an initial EIS for the entire fifteen-year program, and the court agreed. Id. at 14–15. The court endorsed the Park Service’s assertion that although NEPA requires agencies to take a “hard look” at environmental impacts, NEPA “does not . . . require the agency to take a new look every time it takes a step that implements a previously-studied action, so NAEC V. USDOI 27 long as the impacts of that step were contemplated and analyzed by the earlier analysis.” Id. The court concluded that the original EIS had already taken a hard look at all the potential impacts associated with each year’s hunt. Id. at 21. Our concern with relying on NEPA adequacy as the sole determinant of whether an action requires a “new look,” as Mayo puts it, is that this robs the statute of limitations of effect in certain situations. Specifically, the statute of limitations becomes meaningless where some steps of a previously studied action remain to occur after expiration of the limitations period. Such a result might discourage agencies from bothering to prepare EISs that contemplate the entirety of a multi-step, long-term project at all, contrary to NEPA’s goals that agencies analyze connected and cumulative actions as much as possible in one EIS. See 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a). Nor are we satisfied with saying that, if the relevant inquiry is whether the initial EIS was adequate, the statute of limitations simply bars the inquiry.
Another approach is to look not at the initial NEPA analysis, but at the underlying plan or program. For instance, in Mayo, the D.C. Circuit relied in part on its conclusion that the plaintiff had not shown that the hunting authorizations deviated in any significant way from the fifteen-year program. 875 F.3d at 21. While we agree that conformity with the initially analyzed plan or program is relevant to NEPA requirements, we do not think it sufficient to answer our question here. After all, the tiering regulations generally assume that the subsequent site-specific action is consistent with the previously studied broad-scale plan. “Nothing in the tiering regulations suggests that the existence of a programmatic EIS for a [regionwide management] plan obviates the need for any future project28 NAEC V. USDOI specific EIS, without regard to the nature or magnitude of a project.” Blue Mountains, 161 F.3d at 1214. Moreover, a focus on plan compliance fails to account for whether members of the public have fair notice of when they should challenge the NEPA compliance of a particular action. We also reject Plaintiffs’ argument that Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) dictates that any action occurring after the adoption of a land use management plan is necessarily a new action subject to the tiering rubric. 542 U.S. 55 (2004). In SUWA, the plaintiffs argued that BLM was required to supplement its previous NEPA analysis for land use plans governing off-road vehicle use on public lands in Southern Utah because there was new evidence available that such use had substantially increased. See id. at 61. The Supreme Court held that supplemental NEPA analysis can be required only where “there remains ‘major Federal actio[n]’ to occur.” Id. at 73 (quoting Marsh v. Or. Nat. Res. Council, 490 U.S. 360, 374 (1989)). In the circumstances of that case, the Court explained that the original EIS supported BLM’s adoption of a land use plan, and that “that action [was] completed when the plan [was] approved.” Id. There was thus “no ongoing ‘major Federal action’ that could require supplementation (though BLM is required to perform additional NEPA analyses if a plan is amended or revised).” Id. (citations omitted). Plaintiffs argue that SUWA dictates that the 2012 EIS covered only the adoption of the IAP, and that supplementation is not the appropriate framework for evaluating this case because Plaintiffs do not ask for an amendment to the IAP. But the circumstances here are different than in SUWA. In SUWA, BLM did not claim to be engaged in an ongoing action supported by the original NEPA analysis; what the plaintiffs challenged was BLM’s NAEC V. USDOI 29 inaction. See id. at 61, 72–73. NEPA supplementation regulations did not require BLM to initiate a proposal for new action, such as amending the plans. See id. at 73. Here, BLM does argue that it is engaged in an ongoing action supported by the 2012 EIS, to which the NEPA supplementation regulations apply. Nothing in SUWA precludes BLM from structuring its activities in this way.
In light of our concerns regarding the statute of limitations and the need for fair notice, we look instead to whether the initial EIS purported to be the EIS for the subsequent action. Our precedents support looking to the language of the EIS to help us form “an accurate description of the [agency’s] proposed action.” Friends of Yosemite Valley, 348 F.3d at 801; see also Block, 690 F.2d at 761 (“The starting point in our analysis is ‘to describe accurately the “federal action” being taken.’” (quoting Aberdeen & Rockfish R.R. Co. v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures (S.C.R.A.P.), 422 U.S. 289, 322 (1975))). For instance, in NAEC v. Lujan, plaintiffs challenged the adequacy of the National Park Service’s EISs regarding mining in three national parks in Alaska, arguing that the EISs contained insufficiently site-specific analysis given the agency’s decision to authorize mining operations. See 961 F.2d 886, 887, 890 (9th Cir. 1992). We rejected plaintiffs’ characterization of the federal action, relying on the EISs’ own description that “[i]f, however, the National Park Service determines that the impacts of proposed mining operations would violate the decision standards for plan of operations approval, and the effects could not be sufficiently mitigated, the plan would be disapproved.” Id. at 890 30 NAEC V. USDOI (citation omitted). We thus concluded that no irreversible and irretrievable commitment of resources had occurred. Id. Similarly, the D.C. Circuit in Mayo relied on the EIS’s statement that its “level of analysis [was] sufficient to allow several management actions to be carried out without having to complete additional environmental analyses (e.g., environmental assessments) prior to implementation.” 875 F.3d at 18. The court factored this EIS statement into its ultimate determination that the Park Service was not required to prepare “additional environmental analyses (e.g., environmental assessments)” prior to each year’s elk hunt. See id. Furthermore, the NEPA regulations emphasize the need for EISs to carefully define the proposal(s) under consideration, and specify detailed criteria to be consulted in the process. For example, the regulations provide that: Agencies shall make sure the proposal which is the subject of an environmental impact statement is properly defined. Agencies shall use the criteria for scope (§1508.25) to determine which proposal(s) shall be the subject of a particular statement. Proposals or parts of proposals which are related to each other closely enough to be, in effect, a single course of action shall be evaluated in a single impact statement. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.4(a). The regulations further specify that the following types of actions “should” be included within the scope of a single EIS:
that: NAEC V. USDOI 31
actions,”
without other actions, or
larger action and depend on the larger action for their justification”; and
that have cumulatively significant impacts. Id. § 1508.25(a). A third category, “Similar actions,” “may” be included within the scope of a single EIS. Id. Agencies must use a public “scoping” process to decide the scope of “actions, alternatives, and impacts to be considered in an environmental impact statement.” Id. §§ 1501.7, 1508.25. Thus, in deciding whether a previous EIS is the EIS for a subsequent action, we find it appropriate to rely on an EIS’s defined scope. If the defined scope of the initial EIS included the subsequent action, NEPA requirements for the subsequent action would fall under the supplementation rubric. If the defined scope of the initial EIS did not include the subsequent action (but presumably the analysis in the initial EIS is to some extent relevant), NEPA requirements for the subsequent action would fall under the tiering rubric. 15 Of course, we recognize that the defined scope of 15 These two frameworks are not mutually exclusive. If an agency wishes to tier a new NEPA analysis to a previous NEPA analysis, the agency may have to take into account whether the previous NEPA analysis requires supplementation. Also, we are not aware of anything 32 NAEC V. USDOI the initial EIS may be ambiguous with regard to whether it does or does not include the precise subsequent action at issue. Applying our standard of review, we must determine whether the agency’s interpretation of the scope is reasonable. Ka Makani, 295 F.3d at 959 & n.3. Although the adequacy of the initial EIS for purposes of the subsequent action may be relevant in an extreme case, where the inadequacy of analysis is so clear as to demonstrate that the scope of the initial EIS cannot reasonably be construed as including the subsequent action, we do not think our scope inquiry constitutes “judicial review of the adequacy” of the initial EIS within the meaning of the NPRPA statute of limitations. 42 U.S.C. § 6506a(n)(1). It cannot reach the adequacy of the initial EIS for those actions actually within its scope.