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

Heading: Scope of the Required EIS

Text: 29 As a threshold matter, defendants argue that NEPA did not obligate the BLM to undertake a detailed environmental analysis of the fungus and the Port Orford Cedar when it prepared the EIS for the Coos Bay RMP. The defendants argue that the EIS merely analyzes the resource management plan, rather than a specific action, and that analysis of the fungus and the Cedar is not required until the time a federal agency makes an irreversible and irretrievable commitment of resources. We disagree. 30 Federal regulations require preparation of an EIS in conjunction with the preparation of any RMP. See 43 C.F.R. § 1601.0-6 (Approval of a resource management plan is considered a major Federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. The environmental analysis of alternatives and the proposed plan shall be accomplished as part of the resource management planning process ...). An agency may not avoid an obligation to analyze in an EIS environmental consequences that foreseeably arise from an RMP merely by saying that the consequences are unclear or will be analyzed later when an EA is prepared for a site-specific program proposed pursuant to the RMP. [T]he purpose of an [EIS] is to evaluate the possibilities in light of current and contemplated plans and to produce an informed estimate of the environmental consequences.... Drafting an [EIS] necessarily involves some degree of forecasting. City of Davis v. Coleman, 521 F.2d 661, 676 (9th Cir.1975) (emphasis added). If an agency were able to defer analysis discussion of environmental consequences in an RMP, based on a promise to perform a comparable analysis in connection with later site-specific projects, no environmental consequences would ever need to be addressed in an EIS at the RMP level if comparable consequences might arise, but on a smaller scale, from a later site-specific action proposed pursuant to the RMP. 31 Once an agency has an obligation to prepare an EIS, the scope of its analysis of environmental consequences in that EIS must be appropriate to the action in question. NEPA is not designed to postpone analysis of an environmental consequence to the last possible moment. Rather, it is designed to require such analysis as soon as it can reasonably be done. See Save Our Ecosystems v. Clark, 747 F.2d 1240, 1246 n. 9 (9th Cir.1984) (Reasonable forecasting and speculation is ... implicit in NEPA, and we must reject any attempt by agencies to shirk their responsibilities under NEPA by labeling any and all discussion of future environmental effects as `crystal ball inquiry,' quoting Scientists' Inst. for Pub. Info., Inc. v. Atomic Energy Comm'n, 481 F.2d 1079, 1092 (D.C.Cir.1973)). If it is reasonably possible to analyze the environmental consequences in an EIS for an RMP, the agency is required to perform that analysis. The EIS analysis may be more general than a subsequent EA analysis, and it may turn out that a particular environmental consequence must be analyzed in both the EIS and the EA. But an earlier EIS analysis will not have been wasted effort, for it will guide the EA analysis and, to the extent appropriate, permit tiering by the EA to the EIS in order to avoid wasteful duplication. 32 It is clear that the EIS for the Coos Bay RMP should have included an analysis of the likely impact of the RMP on the fungus and the Port Orford Cedar. This environmental problem was readily apparent at the time the EIS was prepared. (Indeed, it was apparent several years before, as evidenced by the earlier preparation of the Guidelines.) The RMP contained enough specifics to permit productive analysis of the fungus and the Cedar, including proposals for alternative ways of dealing with the problem. We therefore inquire whether the analysis in the EIS for the Coos Bay RMP is adequate under NEPA.