Opinion ID: 3039428
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: “Substantial Changes” in the Resource

Text: Management Plans BLM concedes it did not conduct a “NEPA analysis” (requiring it to, inter alia, perform an EA, issue an EIS or a Finding of No Significant Impact, and seek public input) prior to implementing its 2001 and 2003 ASR Decisions regarding the red tree vole. BLM argues that changes in agency policy do not always require NEPA analysis. This is correct. The Supreme Court opined in Marsh that “an agency need not supplement an EIS every time new information comes to light after the EIS is finalized.” 490 U.S. at 373. However, NEPA requires an agency to take a “hard look” at potential environmental consequences before taking action, Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 462 U.S. 87, 97 (1983), and if the proposed action might significantly affect the quality of the environment, a supplemental EIS is KLAMATH SISKIYOU WILDLANDS v. BLM 18241 required. Marsh, 490 U.S. at 374; Price Road Neighborhood Ass’n v. U.S. Dep’t of Transp., 113 F.3d 1505, 1509 (9th Cir. 1997). [13] BLM contends the ASR Decisions were not agency “actions” but merely implementations of an already established—and EIS-supported—agency policy (i.e., the ASR process). This argument sounds suspiciously similar to BLM’s attempt to define the decisions as plan maintenance actions rather than plan amendments under FLPMA, and it fails for the same reasons: (1) BLM’s actions amend, not merely maintain, the resource management plans, and (2) the ASR Decisions were rejected in the 2000 FSEIS. Indeed, for reasons explained in Part IV, supra, the ASR decisions changed the resource management plans substantially, and BLM was required to conduct NEPA analyses prior to implementing those changes. BLM contends the Supreme Court’s decision in S. Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55 (2004) (“SUWA”), requires us to treat the 2001 ROD, and not the ASR Decisions, as the final “agency action.” If true, this would change our analysis considerably because the NEPA requirements only apply to “major Federal actions.” SUWA, 542 U.S. at 72 (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)); see also Marsh, 490 U.S. at 374 (EIS supplementation is necessary only “if there remains major Federal action to occur”). However, SUWA does not support BLM’s position; indeed, it weakens it. In SUWA, environmental groups sought to compel BLM to perform a supplemental NEPA analysis in an area where a recent increase in off-road vehicle use had affected the environment. The Supreme Court disagreed with the environmental groups, opining: although the “[a]pproval of a [land use plan]” is a “major Federal action” requiring an EIS, 43 CFR § 1601.0-6 (2003), that action is completed when the 18242 KLAMATH SISKIYOU WILDLANDS v. BLM plan is approved. The land use plan is the proposed action contemplated by the regulation. There is 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, see §§ 1610.5-5, 5-6). 542 U.S. at 73. [14] Emphasizing that an agency action is completed when a land use plan is approved, BLM urges us to hold that approval of the Roseburg and Medford resource management plans in 1995, and the 2001 ROD amending them, are the relevant federal actions for purposes of NEPA compliance. For reasons discussed heretofore, however, BLM cannot sustain the argument that the ASR Decisions were made pursuant to a pre-approved and EIS-supported plan. On the contrary, the decisions amended the management plans by adopting policies unequivocally rejected in previous agency actions and scientific analyses. The Court’s holding in the last line of the above-quoted passage is clear: when amending a resource management plan—as defined in 43 C.F.R. § 1610.5-5—an agency must perform supplemental NEPA analysis. Because the ASR Decisions trigger the § 1610.5-5 requirements under FLPMA, they also trigger the NEPA requirements under 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(c)(1)(i). 2. “Significant New Circumstances or Information.” [15] The second prong of 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(c)(1) requires a NEPA analysis if there are “significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its impacts.” Id.; see also SUWA, 542 U.S. at 72 (treating 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(c)(1)(ii) as an independent threshold that, if met, requires an agency to conduct a NEPA analysis). [16] The ASR Decisions are clearly “relevant” to the environment and have a “bearing” on BLM’s resource manageKLAMATH SISKIYOU WILDLANDS v. BLM 18243 ment plans. The only inquiry is whether the ASR Decisions are the product of “significant new circumstances or information.” Given BLM’s decision to dramatically change the vole’s Survey and Manage designation (especially in light of the 2000 FSEIS’s unequivocal rejection of Alternative 2), coupled with its argument that the ASR Decisions were based on a pool of data 80% of which was not available when the 2000 FSEIS was created, the ASR Decisions and their impact can be nothing short of “significant.” Moreover, our holding in Idaho Sporting Congress v. Thomas, 137 F.3d 1146, 1150 (9th Cir. 1998) counsels in favor of requiring NEPA analysis under circumstances such as these. In Idaho Sporting, we recognized that under 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2) an EIS “must be prepared if substantial questions are raised as to whether a project may cause significant degradation of some human environmental factor.” 137 F.3d at 1149. We explained that “[t]he plaintiff need not show that significant effects will in fact occur, but if the plaintiff raises substantial questions whether a project may have a significant effect, an EIS must be prepared.” Id. at 1150 (emphasis in original). This is a low standard. Given how unequivocally the 2000 FSEIS rejected Alternative 2, adopting a policy within a matter of months of the 2000 FSEIS that closely resembles the rejected alternative at least raises “substantial questions” regarding its impact. Furthermore, not only did BLM fail to conduct an EIS prior to implementing either of the ASR Decisions, it did not even conduct an EA. NEPA’s implementing regulations state that EAs should be conducted “to provide sufficient evidence and analysis for determining whether to prepare an environmental impact statement or a finding of no significant impact.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.9(a)(1). Indeed, as we explained in Metcalf v. Daley, 214 F.3d 1135, 1143 (9th Cir. 2000), “[b]ecause the very important decision whether to prepare an EIS is based solely on the EA, the EA is fundamental to the decisionmaking process.” In this vein, we have held that “[i]f the pro18244 KLAMATH SISKIYOU WILDLANDS v. BLM posed action does not categorically require the preparation of an EIS, the agency must prepare an EA to determine whether the action will have a significant effect on the environment.” Kern v. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 284 F.3d 1062, 1066 (9th Cir. 2002). [17] In sum, BLM is unable to explain (1) why the ASR Decisions are not the product of “significant new circumstances or information,” (2) why there were not “substantial questions regarding whether the ASR Decisions would have a significant effect,” and (3) why it did not at least conduct a environmental assessments to answer these questions. For each of these reasons, BLM’s 2001 and 2003 ASR Decisions regarding the red tree vole are invalid for failing to satisfy NEPA.