Court Opinion

ID: 9627111
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:34:58.76537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:39.800645
License: Public Domain

MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
Ecology Center v. Austin, 430 F.3d 1057 (9th Cir.2005) is binding law in this circuit and dictates the outcome of this case. See Gen. Constr. Co. v. Castro, 401 F.3d 963, 975 (9th Cir.2005) (“[W]e are bound by decisions of prior panels unless an en banc decision, Supreme Court decision or subsequent legislation undermines those decisions.”). However, I write a separate concurrence in this case because, like Judge Margaret McKeown, I believe that Ecology Center was wrongly decided. See Ecology Ctr., 430 F.3d at 1071-78 (McKeown, dissenting). Following Ecology Center in this instant matter, compounds already serious errors of federal law because “the majority’s extension of Lands Council v. Powell, 379 F.3d 738 (9th Cir.2004), amended by 395 F.3d 1019, 1024 (9th Cir.2005), [to Ecology Center ] represents an unprecedented incursion into the administrative process and ratchets up the scrutiny we apply to the scientific and administrative judgments of the Forest Service... .[T]he majority has, in effect, displaced ‘arbitrary and capricious’ review for a more demanding standard.” Id. at 1072.
In Lands Council v. Powell (Lands Council I), 379 F.3d 738 (9th Cir.2004), amended by 395 F.3d 1019 (9th Cir.2005), the court reviewed the Forest Service’s approval of a timber harvest as part of a watershed restoration project in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest (IPNF). 395 F.3d at 1024. The project was “designed to improve the aquatic, vegetative, and wildlife habitat in the Project area.” Id. at 1025. The Lands Council challenged the project’s compliance with the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) because the project was allegedly inconsistent with the IPNF Forest Plan, and because it questioned the reliability of the Forest *781Service’s scientific methodology underlying its analysis of disturbed soil conditions. Id. at 1032-34. The Forest Service did not take soil samples from the activity area, but instead relied on samples from other areas in the Forest and aerial photographs to determine the quality of the soil in the project area. Id.
Even though our rules provided that the Forest Service was entitled to deference for its technical expertise, the Lands Council I court rejected the Forest Service’s choice of scientific methodology because it was based entirely on a spreadsheet model with no on-site inspection or verification. Id. at 1035. The court explained that “[ujnder the circumstances of this case, the Forest Service’s basic scientific methodology, to be reliable, required that the hypothesis and prediction of the model be verified with observation. The predictions of the model ... were not verified with on the ground analysis.” Id. Thus, the court held that the “Forest Service’s reliance on the spreadsheet models, unaccompanied by on-site spot verification of the model’s predictions, violated NFMA.” Id. As Judge McKeown observed, Lands Council I made “compliance with NFMA and NEPA a moving target.” Id. at 1073.
Ecology Center was erroneously decided, in part, because the majority applied the court’s criticism of the Forest Service’s soil analysis in Lands Council I to its review of the Forest Service’s soil quality analysis conducted as part of the Lolo National Forest Post Burn Project. The Ecology Center majority’s reliance on Lands Council I is faulty because the Lands Council I court’s determination that “on-site spot verification” was required for soil analysis was in direct response to the specific record and circumstances of that case. As Judge McKeown explained, “there is no legal basis to conclude that the NFMA requires an on-site analysis where there is a reasonable scientific basis to uphold the legitimacy of modeling. NFMA does not impose this substantive requirement, and it cannot be derived from the procedural parameters of NEPA.” Ecology Ctr., 430 F.3d at 1073.
Furthermore, the Ecology Center majority’s application of Lands Council I is also erroneous because the Forest Service did conduct on-site analysis in the activity area of the Lolo National Forest. Even if the majority had been correct in reading Lands Council I to require on-site analysis in every case, the Forest Service complied with this requirement. In fact, there are specific reports indicating that soil analysis was conducted in the activity area. Nevertheless, the majority rejected these reports on the grounds that they were “too few and of poor quality.” Id. It complained that “[t]he record provides little information that enables us to assess the reliability or significance of these reports; for example, we do not know the qualifications of the person conducting the field review, the methodology utilized, or whether the field observations confirmed or contradicted the Service’s estimates.” Id. at 1070. Judge McKeown observed that “[f]rom this judgment, we are left to conclude that not only does the court of appeals set bright-line rules, such as requiring an on-site, walk the territory inspection, but it also assesses the detail and quality of that analysis-even in the absence of contrary scientific evidence in the record.” Id. at 1073. She also noted that “Lands Council [/] does not direct us to assess the sufficiency of the Forest Service’s on-site soil quality analysis beyond the traditional arbitrary and capricious standard; it only asks us to verify that there is such an on-site sampling.” Id. at 1075.
*782Additionally, “the [Ecology Center ] majority generalizes the ‘unverified hypothesis’ principle articulated in Lands Council [I ] beyond the soil analysis to other scientific findings made by the Forest Service. In so doing, the majority demonstrates the dangers of extending a reference-abstracted from a single technically detailed, fact-specific decision-to unrelated factual contexts.” Id. at 1076. For example, the majority applied Lands Council I to find that the Forest Service’s conclusion that treating old-growth forest is beneficial to dependent species is predicated on an unverified hypothesis. Id. at 1064. The majority criticized the Forest Service for not taking the time to test its theory that thinning of old-growth stands via commercial logging and prescribed burning would improve, or at least not harm, old-growth dependent species. Id.
Judge McKeown concluded that “[a]p-parently we no longer simply determine whether the Forest Service’s methodology involves a ‘hard look’ through the use of ‘hard data,’ but now are called upon to make fine-grained judgments of its worth.” Id. at 1077. This is in direct contradiction to basic administrative law principles — “we reverse agency decisions only if they are arbitrary and capricious.” Id. “This standard of review does not direct us to literally dig in the dirt (or soil, as it were), get our fingernails dirty and flyspeek the agency’s analysis.” Id. Finally, “[t]he majority’s rationale cannot be reconciled with our case law requiring ‘[djeference to an agency’s technical expertise and experience,’ particularly ‘with respect to questions involving engineering and scientific matters.’ ” Id. (quoting United States v. Alpine Land & Reservoir Co., 887 F.2d 207, 213 (9th Cir.1989)).
I believe that our reasoning and holding in the instant matter perpetuates the majority’s faulty reasoning in Ecology Center. Had the majority in Ecology Center not erroneously stretched the court’s reasoning and analysis in Lands Council I, we might have upheld the district court’s decision in this case because of our obligation to defer to the scientific expertise of the Forest Service and to overrule only determinations that are “arbitrary and capricious.”
First, in examining the adequacy of the Forest Service’s scientific data concerning the effects of the Project on wildlife habitat, we would not be bound by the requirement that the Forest Service’s hypothesis and prediction must be “verified with observation” and “on the ground analysis.” Lands Council I, 395 F.3d at 1035. As Judge McKeown explained, the court in Lands Council I concluded that under the record and circumstances in that case the “Forest Service’s reliance on the spreadsheet models, unaccompanied by on-site spot verification of the model’s predictions, violated NFMA.” Ecology Ctr., 430 F.3d at 1073(quoting Lands Council I, 395 F.3d at 1035). There is no indication in the text of the Lands Council I opinion that the court sought to create an on-site analysis verification requirement for all soil quality anal-yses, and there is even less support for the proposition that the on-site verification requirement should be extended to “all scientific hypotheses adopted by the Forest Service regardless of context.” Id. at 1076. Thus, but for Ecology Centers on-site verification requirement, we would have at least been able to consider the Forest Service’s documentary support for its hypothesis that restoration treatment will benefit dependent species. As it stands, we summarily dismiss the Forest Service’s reliance on the R. Richard Howie and Ralph Ritcey study entitled Distribution, Habitat Selection, and Densities of Flammulated Owls in British Columbia simply because it is a survey of the flam-mulated owls’ habitat in British Columbia. *783Op. at 776-77. Although the Howie and Ritcey study admittedly does not conclude that logging improves flammulated owl habitat, it does document a flammulated owl presence within logged old-growth stands. We also would have been able to examine the Montana Partners in Flight, Montana Bird Conservation Plan, Idaho Partners in Flight, and Idaho Bird Conservation Plan. Again, even though none of these reports unequivocally state that logging will improve flammulated owl habitat, they do demonstrate that flammulated owls can inhabit selectively-logged stands. Ultimately, we might not have changed our conclusion that the “Forest Service has not proven the reliability of its scientific methodology with regard to wildlife habitat restoration in the Mission Brush Project,” but it should have been based on the content of the reports themselves — not the mere fact that they did not constitute “on the ground analysis.” Op. at 775-77.
Even if one assumes, arguendo, that Ecology Center did not err in adopting the Lands Council I’s “verified with observation” and “on the ground analysis” requirement or in applying it to all of the Forest Service’s scientific hypotheses, Lands Council I certainly did not empower the majority in Ecology Center “to assess the detail and quality of,” Ecology Center, 430 F.3d at 1073, the Forest Service’s analysis and to “make fine-grained judgments of its worth,” Id. at 1078. Just as Judge McKeown believes that the majority should have held that the Forest Service’s soil analysis was in compliance with Lands Council I because it was on-site analysis and challenges the appropriateness of the majority’s criticism of the soil evaluators’ qualifications, I question whether, without Ecology Center, we would be able to scrutinize how many owl hoots were heard in the Dawson Ridge Study. Op. at 776-77. The Forest Service already considered this report and determined that there is sufficient support for its hypothesis that treating old-growth forest will maintain habitat and benefit dependent species. Judge McKeown captures my concern with her statement that “[i]n faulting the Forest Service’s soil quality and concluding that old-growth forest will not be impaired, the majority changes our posture of review to one where we sit at the table with Forest Service scientists and second-guess the minutiae of the decision making process.” Ecology Ctr., 430 F.3d at 1072. Similarly, by counting owl hoots, we are abandoning our role as reviewers under an “arbitrary and capricious” standard and supplanting the Forest Service as decision makers. If we do not grant the Forest Service appropriate deference in areas of scientific expertise, we defeat the purpose of permitting the Forest Service to make administrative decisions in the first place, and we intrude into areas far beyond our competence.
Finally, not only is Ecology Center problematic from an administrative law perspective, but the injunction commanded in that case continues the pattern by some courts in this circuit of issuing injunctions based upon misconstructions of federal law that frustrate the careful legal balance struck by the democratic branches of our government between important environmental protections and carefully regulated logging within our national forests. It is not presently, and has never been, the policy of our national government under any administration to ban all logging in all of our national forests, and-yet, cases like Ecology Center make it virtually impossible for logging to occur under any conditions because the Forest Service can never satisfy the constantly moving legal targets created by our circuit, sometimes out of whole cloth.
When federal law truly forbids logging in a particular area, we have appropriately *784held that “the public interest in preserving nature and avoiding irreparable environmental injury outweighs economic concerns,” Op. at 780 (citing Earth Island Inst. v. U.S. Forest Serv., 442 F.3d 1147, 1177 (9th Cir.2006); Earth Island Inst. v. U.S. Forest Serv., 351 F.3d 1291, 1308-09; Nat’l Parks & Conservation Ass’n v. Babbitt, 241 F.3d 722, 738 (9th Cir.2001); see also Sierra Nev. Forest Prot. Campaign v. Tippin, No. 06-00351, 2006 WL 2583036, at *21 (E.D.Cal. August 16, 2006)), but, as noted, I do not believe that the majority in Ecology Center correctly construed applicable federal law. When we misconstrue federal law and compound the effects of that misconstruction by affirming or requiring the issuance of a blunderbuss injunction banning all logging in a particular area instead of using a finely crafted legal scalpel based upon correct legal interpretations, we needlessly create great hardship in the lives of many people, harm the economic interests of our country, and foster disrespect for our courts. We must remember that an injunction is an equitable remedy that “must be narrowly tailored to give only the relief to which plaintiffs are entitled.” Orantes-Hernandez v. Thornburgh, 919 F.2d 549, 558(9th Cir.1990) (emphasis added). An injunction should “remedy only the specific harms shown by the plaintiffs, rather than to enjoin all possible breaches of the law,” Price v. City of Stockton, 390 F.3d 1105, 1117 (9th Cir.2004) (internal quotation marks omitted), and it “should be no more burdensome to the defendant than necessary to provide complete relief to the plaintiffs,” Califano v. Yamasaki 442 U.S. 682, 702, 99 S.Ct. 2545, 61 L.Ed.2d 176 (1979).
Although I readily acknowledge that injunctions are sometimes required and appropriate in interdicting certain violations of federal law (and especially environmental law), in my view the pattern of some courts within our circuit to occasionally hand down over-broad injunctions based upon incorrect constructions of federal law has substantially contributed to (even though it is not entirely responsible for) the decimation of the logging industry in the Pacific Northwest in the last two decades and the commensurate growth of logging in our neighbor to the north. Scholars with far more time available than I have can trace the case-by-case results on a region-by-region basis, but the following governmental statistical data are illustrative of the damage suffered, at least part of which, in my opinion, is properly attributable to the effects of improperly granted or over-broad federal court injunctions.
In Oregon, which has traditionally been one of the country’s leading producers of wood and paper products, timber harvests on federal lands decreased by more than 89% between 1988 and 1998. Krista M. Gebert, et al., U.S. Dept. of Agric., Utilization of Oregon’s Timber Harvest and Associated Direct Economic Effects, 1998 2 (2002). The number of primary lumber mills in Oregon went from 360 in 1988 to 200 in 1998, and overall log consumption was cut nearly in half. Id.
Similar effects were felt throughout the Pacific Northwest. In the area covered by the Northwest Forest Plan, which encompasses northwest California as well as the western portions of Oregon and Washington, 30,000 direct lumber industry jobs were lost between 1990 and 2000. 1 Susan Charnley, et al., U.S. Dept. of Agric., Socioeconomic Monitoring Results 13 (2006). The communities closest to the forest lands have been hit the hardest. The Department of Agriculture reports that 40% of the communities within five miles of federal forests in this region suffered decreases in socioeconomic well-being during this period. Id. at 12. Although logging was a vital source of economic stability in *785these communities during the 1970s and 1980s, it “had become minor or negligible” in much of this area by 2003. Id. at 15.
Furthermore, in my view there is a correlation between sometimes over-broad court injunctions halting the flow of lumber and the dramatic decrease of employment in logging communities throughout the Pacific Northwest. For example in Quilcene, Washington, the number of people working in the national forest dropped by 59% between 1993 and 2003. 3 Susan Charnley, et al., U.S. Dept. of Agric., Socioeconomic Monitoring Results 127, 131 (2006). Also, in the Mid-Klamath region in northern California, where logging went from providing 30% of the area’s jobs in 1990 to only 4% in 2000, the economic impact was devastating. Id. “Many mill workers, loggers, and F[orest] S[ervice] employees moved away in search of work elsewhere, taking their families with them. As a consequence, housing prices dropped, stores and service centers that supported these workers shut down, and school enrollment declined precipitously.... Not only did the community lose its economic base, but it also lost productive people who were hard-working and contributed much to the community.” Id. at 131.
The effects of the severe decline in logging at least partially brought about by sweeping federal court injunctions incorrectly applying federal law are apparent on a national scale as well. From 1965 to 1988, lumber exports from the United States enjoyed steady growth. James L. Howard, U.S. Dept. of Agric., U.S. Timber Production, Trade, Consumption, and Price Statistics 1965 to 1999 4 (2001). After 1988, the Department of Agriculture reports that lumber exports suddenly spiraled downward at the same time that lumber imports reached unprecedented highs. Id. at 52. In 1988, before our circuit began to aggressively issue extremely broad injunctions against the logging industry, lumber exports peaked at 4.5 billion board feet and the United States imported 13.8 billion board feet. Id. By 1999, lumber exports had plummeted to just 2.5 billion board feet while imports soared to 19.9 billion board feet. Id.
Judge Ferguson asserts a contrary view in his concurrence. He cites as authority for that view a 2003 tome by Messrs. Derrick Jensen and George Draffan entitled Strangely Like War: The Global Assault on Forests, which attributes the decline of logging in the Northwest almost entirely to corporate consolidation and cost-cutting within the timber industry. Every citizen has the constitutional right to express his or her views on any subject and have the value of what he or she says, and any works cited, evaluated by the hearer or reader, but, in my view, writers who say extreme things should not be surprised that many of the things they say will be heavily discounted because of that very extremism. According to Wikipedia, “Jensen is often labeled an ‘anarcho-primi-tivist,’ who is quoted as saying in his book A Language Older Than Words that ‘[e]very morning when I awake I ask myself whether I should write or blow up a dam. I tell myself I should keep writing, though I’m not sure that’s right.’ ” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derrick_ Jensen. Mr. Draffan is described by Aric McBay in an interview published in In the Wake as a “forest activist, public interest investigator and corporate muckracker.” Aric McBay, An Interview with George Draffan, In the Wake, available at http:// www.inthewake.org/draffanl.html. He is a frequent contributor to Endgame.org and the compiler of Activist Research Manual published in January 1999 by the Public Information Network. I respectfully suggest that the views of persons who, for example, fantasize about blowing up dams (a form of eco-terrorism and criminal act *786that potentially threatens the lives and property of thousands of people) deserve a healthy skepticism because they are so skewed and are so far from the mainstream of knowledgeable discourse.
As federal judges, we have a weighty responsibility to properly construe and apply federal environmental laws in order to protect our national parks and endangered species from undisciplined and unregulated timber harvesting, but we may not properly ignore the well-established standards that govern our own role in reviewing the laws and regulations enacted by the representative branches of our government and the agencies empowered to implement those laws.
Because I respectfully contend that it was wrongly decided, I would (if the occasion arises) reverse the majority’s holding in Ecology Center, which would likely change the result in this case. However, because I am legally bound by Ecology Center, I reluctantly join my colleagues in reversing the lower court.