Opinion ID: 3038902
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Consummation

Text: [3] We next turn to whether issuance of an AOI satisfies the Bennett test for final agency action under the APA. To meet the first prong of the Bennett test, the challenged agency action must represent the consummation of the agency’s decisionmaking process.8 520 U.S. at 178. The action “must not be of a merely tentative or interlocutory nature.” Id. Rather, we look to see whether the agency “ ‘has rendered its last word on the matter’ ” to determine whether an action is final and is ripe for judicial review. Whitman v. Am. Trucking Ass’n, 531 U.S. 457, 478 (2001) (quoting Harrison v. PPG Indus., Inc., 446 U.S. 578, 586 (1980)). The administrative record establishes that an AOI is the Forest Service’s “last word” authorizing an individual permit holder to graze each season. [4] An AOI sets forth the Forest Service’s annual determinations regarding how much grazing particular units (pastures) within a given allotment can sustain in the upcoming season. As demonstrated by the record, in establishing the terms of an AOI, the Forest Service considers such matters as 8 The district court did not make an explicit holding on Bennett’s first requirement. 11844 OREGON NATURAL DESERT v. USFS changes in pasture conditions, new scientific information, new rules that have been adopted during the previous season, or the extent of the permit holder’s compliance with the previous year’s AOI. The AOI is a critical instrument in the Forest Service’s regulation of grazing on national forest lands. Indeed, when the Forest Service takes a site-specific action within the Malheur Forest, such as issuing a grazing permit for an allotment within the forest, the Forest Service’s actions must comply with the standards and conditions set out in the Malheur Forest Plan as well as applicable federal environmental law. See, e.g., 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C); 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2). Although the Forest Service generally implements Forest Plan standards on designated grazing allotments with an AMP, none of the allotments involved in this litigation has a current AMP.9 Where an AMP does not exist for an allotment, the Forest Service has integrated the Forest Plan’s terms directly into the grazing permits each year through the AOI. For example, in 1996, the Forest Service issued three grazing permits for different pastures within the Bluebucket Allotment. The permits identify the general statutory and regulatory framework that governs the actions of the individual permit holders so that livestock grazing will be consistent with the Malheur Forest Plan. Part III of each grazing permit provides: “prior to completion and implementation of the scheduled individual AMP’s, we will be working with you through the Annual Operating Plans [i.e., AOIs] to bring management of the Bluebucket Allotment into consistency with the terms of the Malheur [Forest Plan].” Thus, here, the Forest Service directly 9 Other than the Bluebucket Allotment, for which the Forest Service prepared an AMP over twenty years ago, none of the allotments at issue in this appeal has an AMP. Each permit states that the Forest Plan has “scheduled” an AMP; however, the record does not reflect that the Forest Service has complied with these schedules. In one case, the Dollar Basin/ Star Glade Allotment, the Forest Service has not completed an allotment analysis—a step preceding development of an AMP—since 1965. OREGON NATURAL DESERT v. USFS 11845 “put[s] the [allotment management] decision[s] into effect” through an AOI. Idaho Watersheds Project, 307 F.3d at 828. [5] In Idaho Watersheds Project, we held that the BLM’s issuance of a grazing permit was a final agency action because “the initial agency decisionmaker arrived at a definitive position and put the decision into effect by issuing the . . . permits.” Id. Here, as in Idaho Watershed Project, the Forest Service arrived at a definitive position to allow grazing in the Malheur National Forest and put that decision into effect by issuing grazing permits. In issuing the permits, the Forest Service reserved the right to impose additional terms and conditions in light of its annual assessment of changed pasture conditions, new scientific information, new rules, and past compliance by the permit holder. As noted, the Forest Service puts these additional modifications or restrictions into effect by issuing an AOI. As the record reflects, when viewed in its proper context, the AOI represents the consummation of the Forest Service’s annual decisionmaking process regarding management of grazing allotments.10 [6] Moreover, after the Forest Service issues an AOI, the grazing permit holder is authorized to begin the new grazing season under its terms and conditions.11 Because the AOI is the only substantive document in the annual application pro10 To suggest that the AOIs are merely part of the Forest Service’s “dayto-day operation,” see Dissenting Opinion at 11857, relegates them to an insignificant role in the Forest Service’s management of the grazing lands under its control. In light of the substantive legal constraints imposed by the AOIs, we are not persuaded by the dissent’s argument. 11 As documented in the administrative record, every spring, the Forest Service initiates consultation with the permit holder regarding the issuance of the AOI for the forthcoming grazing season. At the end of this consultation process, the Forest Service sets the terms and conditions for grazing in any particular allotment. Without the AOI, the permit holder would not know where within the allotment to graze, how many head to graze when, or any specific conservation measures that the Forest Service deemed warranted for the upcoming season. 11846 OREGON NATURAL DESERT v. USFS cess, it functions to do more than make minor adjustments in the grazing permit as the Forest Service asserts; pragmatically, it functions to start the grazing season. In short, the AOI is the Forest Service’s “last word” before the permit holders begin grazing their livestock. Whitman, 531 U.S. at 478; cf. Ecology Ctr., Inc. v. USFS, 192 F.3d 922, 925 (9th Cir. 1999) (holding that monitoring and reporting under NFMA were not agency actions that consummated the Forest Service’s decisionmaking process because they were “only steps leading to an agency decision, rather than the final action itself”). [7] The Forest Service does not contest that an AOI is the Forest Service’s “last word” before a permit holder begins grazing his livestock. Rather, the Forest Service asserts that an AOI merely implements other decisions that the Forest Service has already made (i.e., the Forest Plan, AMPs, and grazing permits), and therefore is not, in itself, a final agency action. This argument, however, mis-characterizes the role of an AOI in the Forest Service’s management of the public range. “It is the effect of the action and not its label that must be considered.” Abramowitz, 832 F.2d at 1075. To this end, “finality is to be interpreted ‘in a pragmatic way.’ ” Oregon v. Ashcroft, 368 F.3d 1118, 1147 (9th Cir. 2004) (quoting Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 149-50 (1967)). It is correct, as the Forest Service argues, that, in obtaining a grazing permit, the applicant agrees to comply with the Forest Plan and other applicable federal environmental requirements. However, as the administrative record demonstrates, an AOI is the only instrument that instructs the permit holder how those standards will affect his grazing operations during the upcoming season. Although the permit holder has already agreed to abide by applicable federal environmental law in signing the term grazing permit, that acknowledgment does not diminish the force of an AOI as consummating the Forest Service’s annual decisionmaking process. In sum, the issuance of an AOI represents the consummation of the Forest Service’s determination regarding the extent, limitation, and OREGON NATURAL DESERT v. USFS 11847 other restrictions on a permit holder’s right to graze his livestock under the terms of the permit.12