Opinion ID: 777060
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ripeness of the Challenge to the Coos Bay EIS

Text: 23 Defendants BLM and the timber companies argue that Ohio Forestry Ass'n v. Sierra Club, 523 U.S. 726, 118 S.Ct. 1665, 140 L.Ed.2d 921 (1998), precludes ONRC's challenge to the adequacy of the Coos Bay EIS. In Ohio Forestry, the Court held that a challenge under the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) to an RMP promulgated by the Forest Service was unripe for judicial decision. See id. at 732, 118 S.Ct. 1665. The Court considered (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. at 733, 118 S.Ct. 1665; see also Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 149, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967). First, the Court found no hardship to the plaintiffs in delaying review because the RMP at issue was merely a general plan, rather than an authorization of specific action. That is, the plan itself did not give anyone a legal right to cut trees, Ohio Forestry, 523 U.S. at 733, 118 S.Ct. 1665, and the plan itself could not harm the plaintiffs. The Court noted that a later challenge to a specific action might also include a challenge to the lawfulness of the present Plan if (but only if) the present Plan then matters, i.e., if the Plan plays a causal role with respect to the future, then-imminent, harm from logging. Id. at 734, 118 S.Ct. 1665. The Court found that the second and third factors weighed against review as well, because interference with the agency's procedures was premature, and because the issue was presently too abstract for judicial review. See id. at 735-37. 24 Defendants urge that Ohio Forestry forecloses our review of ONRC's NEPA challenge to the Coos Bay EIS because, like the plan in Ohio Forestry, the challenged plan in this case is an RMP. The defendants argue that the RMP prepared under FLPMA in this case is analogous to the RMP prepared under NFMA in Ohio Forestry. However, this case differs from Ohio Forestry in a critical respect. The plaintiffs in Ohio Forestry alleged that the RMP violated NFMA, the statute that required the preparation of the RMP. They did not allege that the RMP violated NEPA. The plaintiffs in this case, however, do not allege that the RMP violates FLPMA. (FLPMA is the equivalent, in this case, to NFMA in Ohio Forestry. ) Rather, they allege that the EIS, prepared in conjunction with the RMP, violates NEPA. Because the plaintiffs here bring a NEPA challenge to an EIS, rather than a NFMA (or a FLPMA) challenge to an RMP, they are able to show an imminence of harm to the plaintiffs and a completeness of action by the agency that the Court held were missing in Ohio Forestry. 25 A NEPA challenge to an EIS is fundamentally unlike a NFMA (or FLPMA) challenge to an RMP. As the Court explained in Ohio Forestry, NEPA, unlike the NFMA, simply guarantees a particular procedure.... [A] person with standing who is 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, 118 S.Ct. 1665. The rights conferred by NEPA are procedural rather than substantive, and plaintiffs allege a procedural rather than a substantive injury. See Methow Valley Citizens, 490 U.S. at 350, 109 S.Ct. 1835 (NEPA itself does not mandate particular results, but simply prescribes the necessary process.); Muckleshoot Indian Tribe v. USFS, 177 F.3d 800, 814 (9th Cir.1999); Inland Empire Pub. Lands Council v. USFS, 88 F.3d 754, 758 (9th Cir.1996) (NEPA exists to ensure a process, not to ensure any result.) (emphasis in original). If there was an injury under NEPA, it occurred when the allegedly inadequate EIS was promulgated. That is, any NEPA violation (and any procedural injury) inherent in the promulgation of an inadequate EIS for the Coos Bay RMP have already occurred. See West v. Sec'y of Dep't of Transp., 206 F.3d 920, 930 n. 14 (9th Cir.4737 2000) (noting Ohio Forestry's distinction between a NEPA claim, involving imminent and certain injury and a NFMA claim); see also Wilderness Soc'y v. Thomas, 188 F.3d 1130, 1133, n. 1 (9th Cir.1999) (noting that Ohio Forestry had acknowledged that a forest plan could always be challenged under [NEPA]). Further, adjudicating ONRC's NEPA claim now will not inappropriately interfere with further administrative action, see Ohio Forestry, 523 U.S. at 733, 118 S.Ct. 1665, because the BLM has already promulgated the EIS for the Coos Bay RMP. The plaintiffs' claim is therefore ripe for review. 26 Our holding comports with the Seventh Circuit's decision in Heartwood, Inc. v. USFS, 230 F.3d 947, 952-53 (7th Cir.2000). In Heartwood, the plaintiffs challenged the Forest Service's failure to prepare either an EIS or an EA prior to promulgating categorical exclusions from NEPA for certain classes of Forest Service actions. Id. at 950-51. The Forest Service contended that the plaintiffs' claim was not ripe under Ohio Forestry because it did not pertain to authorization of a specific project, but the Seventh Circuit disagreed. Id. at 952. Noting that the Supreme Court in Ohio Forestry had explicitly distinguished a NEPA claim from a NFMA claim, the court explained that a plaintiff clearly has standing to sue where there is a concrete injury underlying the procedural default even if the plan is not implemented immediately. Id. at 953 (emphasis added) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Therefore, the Heartwood plaintiffs were not barred by Ohio Forestry from asserting their NEPA claim, because they need not wait to challenge a specific project when their grievance is with an overall plan. Id. at 953.