Opinion ID: 151425
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Scheffe Method

Text: The drilling activities and associated development anticipated by the Atlantic Rim Project will emit pollution, including nitrous oxides and volatile organic compounds that can raise ground-level ozone concentrations. As part of the project's EIS, the Bureau estimated the effect the proposed development would have on ozone concentrations using a mathematical model developed in 1988 called the Scheffe method. Appellants maintain that the Scheffe method was outdated by the time it was used in the Atlantic Rim Project's EIS. Therefore, argue Appellants, the Bureau violated NEPA because using an outdated method meant the agency could not take a sufficiently hard look at the project's impact on ozone concentrations. See Methow Valley, 490 U.S. at 350, 109 S.Ct. 1835 (explaining that NEPA's procedures require agencies to take a hard look at environmental consequences). In addition, Appellants argue that using the Scheffe method violated 40 C.F.R. § 1502.24, which requires that an agency ensure the scientific integrity of their environmental impact statements. We reject both arguments. One of the comments for the Atlantic Rim Project EIS argued that the Scheffe method was obsolete because of its deficiencies compared with newer models. In response to this comment and related comments on other projects, the Bureau produced a memorandum that in effect admitted the Scheffe method used outdated measurements and assumptions. The Bureau therefore adopted a newer method for future air quality assessments. However, it continued to use estimates derived using the Scheffe method for the Atlantic Rim Project EIS. See BLM, Information Memorandum for State Director, Ozone Issue and BLM-WY Response, at 1 (Aug. 31, 2006) ( Ozone Issue Letter ). In the Atlantic Rim Project's final EIS and Record of Decision, the Bureau justified its decision to keep the estimates derived by the Scheffe method, explaining that it is an overly conservative screening level modeling tool, FEIS at 4-12; see id. App'x F, 44 (noting that problems with the Scheffe model were likely to result in overestimates of the actual [ozone] impacts that would occur), and was an acceptable method at the time the air quality analysis was conducted, ROD at 7. The Record of Decision also established that the Bureau will require monitoring of ozone and other pollutants and use adaptive management to mitigate impacts if needed. Id. When the Bureau decided in August 2006 to use a different methodology for future air quality analyses, the Atlantic Rim Project's air quality analysis had been completed one month earlier. Compare Ozone Issue Letter with FEIS at App'x F. Going back to recalculate ozone impacts would have delayed the Atlantic Rim Project schedule. And because a still newer method could have been developed during that re-analysis, the process could have been endless. See W. Coal Traffic League v. ICC, 735 F.2d 1408, 1411 (D.C.Cir.1984) (declining to require an agency to behave like Penelope, unraveling each day's work to start the web again the next day). Given the Bureau's conclusion that the Scheffe method was an acceptable and conservative method when the analysis was carried out, the Bureau reasonably decided to retain the old estimates rather than undertake a new air quality analysis. On these facts, as noted by the district court, an agency's reliance on outdated data is not arbitrary or capricious, `particularly given the many months required to conduct full [analysis] with the new data.' TRCP, 605 F.Supp.2d at 273 (quoting Village of Bensenville v. FAA, 457 F.3d 52, 71 (D.C.Cir.2006)). The Record of Decision explains that the Scheffe method was an acceptable method at the time the air quality analysis was completed. ROD at 7, E-8. Before undertaking the analysis, the Bureau contacted various interested agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Park Service, and the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality. None objected to using the Scheffe method. In addition, the final EIS discusses the weaknesses of the Scheffe method, but notes that those weaknesses likely resulted in overestimates of the actual [ozone] impacts that would occur. FEIS at App'x F, 44. See also Wy. Outdoor Council, 176 IBLA 15, 33 (2008) (quoting the original 1988 paper establishing the Scheffe method, which said the estimates produced should be interpreted as conservative predictions which would exceed ozon[e] formation produced by actual episodic events). This was a substantive response to the criticisms of the Scheffe method that satisfied both NEPA's hard look requirement and the APA arbitrary and capricious standard. See Methow Valley, 490 U.S. at 350, 109 S.Ct. 1835; 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). The Bureau's discussion of the Scheffe method's validity also explains why, contrary to Appellants' contention, 40 C.F.R. § 1502.24 was not violated. That regulation requires agencies to ensure the scientific integrity of their environmental impact statements. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.24. It does not require that an agency employ the best, most cutting-edge methodologies. In this case, the Bureau reasonably concluded that the estimates derived by the Scheffe method were adequate and did not need to be recalculated using a different method. Appellants further contend that even if retaining the Scheffe-derived estimates in the final EIS was not arbitrary and capricious or a violation of NEPA, drafting environmental assessments for the PODs necessitated the recalculation of the proposed wells' likely effects on ozone concentrations. When the Bureau conducted environmental assessments for the PODs in the Catalina and Sun Dog units, it referred back to the ozone concentration estimates in the Atlantic Rim Project's EIS that were produced using the Scheffe method, at a time when the Bureau had already decided not to use the Scheffe method any longer. Therefore, argue Appellants, the Bureau should have gone back to fill in any holes in the original ozone impact assessment when it carried out the drilling permit environmental assessments. Appellants Br. at 40 (citing Kern v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 284 F.3d 1062, 1078 (9th Cir.2002)). This argument is also unavailing. In general, an agency preparing an environmental assessment for a drilling permit is not required to reevaluate the analyses included in the relevant project's EIS. Instead, NEPA regulations allow tiering, which permits site-specific environmental analyses to incorporate by reference the general discussions of prior, broader environmental impact statements. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.28. The regulations expressly provide that [t]iering is appropriate when the sequence of statements or analyses is ... [f]rom a program, plan, or policy environmental impact statement to a program, plan, or policy statement or analysis of lesser scope or to a site-specific statement or analysis.  § 1508.28(a) (emphasis added). While courts have required environmental assessments to analyze certain impacts for the first time when the broader analysis did not address the impact in question at all, see, e.g., Kern, 284 F.3d at 1078, this is not such a case. The Atlantic Rim Project did address the impact drilling would have on ozone concentrations. Tiering a POD's environmental assessment to that analysis in compliance with the governing regulation is hardly arbitrary and capricious. Appellants' objection that a method used in the earlier analysis had been surpassed by superior technology by the time of the tiered analysis does not invalidate the later assessment. Projects like the Atlantic Rim Project are designed to span several decades, and it is not surprising that scientific conventions and protocols develop and change in that time (though here they did so sooner rather than later). NEPA does not limit tiering to analyses still on the scientific cutting edge. Nothing in the law requires agencies to reevaluate their existing environmental analyses each time the original methodologies are surpassed by new developments.