Court Opinion

ID: 9382550
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-03-28 00:00:46.255689+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:40.161993
License: Public Domain

Case: 21-60897    Document: 00516690185        Page: 1     Date Filed: 03/27/2023

          United States Court of Appeals
               for the Fifth Circuit                                   United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                Fifth Circuit

                                                                              FILED
                                                                        March 27, 2023
                                No. 21-60897                             Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                              Clerk

   Harrison County, Mississippi; Hancock County,
   Mississippi; City of Biloxi, Mississippi; City of
   D’Iberville, Mississippi; City of Waveland, Mississippi;
   Mississippi Hotel and Lodging Association; Mississippi
   Commercial Fisheries United, Incorporated; City of
   Pass Christian, Mississippi; City of Diamondhead,
   Mississippi,

                                                         Plaintiffs—Appellants,

                                    versus

   United States Army Corps of Engineers,

                                                         Defendant—Appellee.

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                   for the Southern District of Mississippi
                           USDC No. 1:19-CV-986

   Before Richman, Chief Judge, and Ho and Engelhardt, Circuit
   Judges.
   Kurt D. Engelhardt, Circuit Judge:
         Plaintiffs aggrieved by increased usage of the Bonnet Carré Spillway
   sued the Army Corps of Engineers to compel the Corps’ preparation of a
   supplemental Environmental Impact Statement as purportedly required by
Case: 21-60897        Document: 00516690185              Page: 2      Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                         No. 21-60897

   the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The district court granted
   the Corps summary judgment on the plaintiffs’ NEPA claims after finding
   that the plaintiffs could not avail themselves of the federal government’s
   waiver of sovereign immunity in cases in which a federal agency fails to
   comply with a discrete duty to act. We agree and AFFIRM.
                                                I
                                               A
           Relentless rains in 1927 fueled an overflowing Mississippi River that
   brought ruin to a stretch of the Mississippi River Valley the size of
   Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont.1 Drowning
   hundreds and displacing hundreds of thousands, the Great Flood of 1927
   drove Congress’ passage of the Flood Control Act of 1928. See Pub L. No.
   70-391, ch. 569, 45 Stat. 534 (codified at 33 U.S.C. § 702a). That legislation
   provided for the establishment of the Mississippi River and Tributaries
   Project (the “MR&T”), a comprehensive flood control program tasked with
   averting the worst Mississippi River flood conceivable—the so-called
   “project design flood.”
           The Bonnet Carré Spillway (the “Spillway”) is a central component
   of the MR&T. Thirty-three miles upriver from the heart of New Orleans,
   the Spillway employs an impressive system of mechanisms to—when
   necessary—divert river water otherwise destined for New Orleans into Lake

           1
            See, e.g., Stephen Ambrose, Man vs. Nature: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927,
   Nat’l Geographic (Apr. 30, 2001) (“Rain in biblical proportions fell from the sky
   through the winter. Then, in the spring, the waters began to rise. . . . The levees failed.
   Here, there, sometimes it seemed everywhere, the river undercut the levees. Water poured
   through breaks called crevasses, covering with 30 feet of water land where nearly one
   million people lived. Twenty-seven thousand square miles were inundated. . . . By July 1,
   even as the flood began to recede, 1.5 million acres were under water. The river was 70
   miles wide. Still the rains came. The river rose higher.”).

                                               2
Case: 21-60897        Document: 00516690185             Page: 3      Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                        No. 21-60897

   Pontchartrain, and in turn, the Mississippi Sound. The Spillway’s benefit to
   New Orleans is twofold: for one, the Spillway shields the City from river flow
   that would otherwise be overwhelming; for another, it saves the City the
   trouble and expense of heightening its levees to manage such flow on its own.
           Unfortunately, the Spillway’s aid to New Orleans comes at a cost to
   the environment and to the Mississippi-based plaintiffs in this case. Through
   its injection of freshwater into Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi Sound,
   the Spillway’s deployment takes a toll on a host of environmental and
   economic interests, causing everything from disruptions to oysters, sea
   turtles, and shrimp, to toxic algae blooms, seafood warnings, and beach
   closures.
           Exacerbating these externalities is a marked—and unexpected—
   increase in the frequency with which the Spillway must be used, which itself
   has been accelerated by changing river conditions2 that make reliance on the
   Spillway an increasingly common fact of life. Designed to activate (or
   “open”) when river flow at New Orleans would otherwise exceed 1.25
   million cubic feet per second (cfs)—the rate the City’s levees can safely
   handle on their own—and originally projected to operate “infrequently and
   for comparatively short periods of time,” the Spillway has become
   considerably more vital in recent years. Indeed, as the district court noted in
   a detailed review of the Spillway’s history, “on average, the Spillway has
   been opened every 6 years over an 89-year period[, but] 6 of the 15 openings
   during that 89-year period occurred in the past 10 years, and 4 of the openings
   occurred between 2018 and 2020.” Some expect that matters will only get
   worse. An LSU analysis, for example, projects a notable increase in river

           2
             As the Corps concedes, “[d]ue to scouring of the channel,” the Spillway’s
   triggering flow level once corresponded to a 20-foot reading at the Carrollton gauge near
   New Orleans, but now corresponds to a mere 17-foot reading at the same gauge.

                                              3
Case: 21-60897        Document: 00516690185              Page: 4       Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                          No. 21-60897

   flow “as a result of riverbed aggradation” and “sand bar growth,” and,
   perhaps more predictably, rising global temperatures and intensified
   hydrologic cycles.
                                                B
           The plaintiffs in this case are a group of Mississippi municipalities and
   associations harmed and threatened by this turn of events. In the only claim
   pertinent to this appeal,3 they sued the Army Corps of Engineers (the
   “Corps”) under Administrative Procedure Act (APA) § 706(1) for the
   Corps’ refusal to prepare a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement
   (EIS)4 as assertedly required by NEPA and accompanying regulations. In
   essence, the plaintiffs contend that the increased frequency and duration of
   Spillway openings in recent years has damaged the Mississippi coast and the
   economic interests relying on it in a way the Corps has not sufficiently
   considered in an EIS. They specifically seek—as immediately relevant
   here—a declaration that the Corps has violated NEPA by failing to
   supplement its 1976 EIS for the MR&T to address changing circumstances
   regarding the Spillway, and an order requiring the Corps to undertake such
   environmental analysis “with all due haste.”

           3
             A second claim by the plaintiffs alleging violations of a separate federal statute
   concerning fishery conservation and management was recently decided by the district court
   and has been separately appealed, and the district court’s dismissal of a second defendant
   (the Mississippi River Commission) was not appealed. As such, the plaintiffs’ APA claim
   against the Corps is all that remains for our present review.
           4
             In contrast to a comparatively modest Categorical Exclusion (CATEX) or
   Environmental Assessment (EA), an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is the most
   “detailed and rigorous” environmental analysis a federal agency can be required to take
   when it “develops a proposal to take a major federal action.” EPA, National
   Environmental               Policy          Act            Review           Process,
   https://www.epa.gov/nepa/national-environmental-policy-act-review-process.

                                                4
Case: 21-60897         Document: 00516690185               Page: 5      Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                          No. 21-60897

           Invoking the federal government’s sovereign immunity, the Corps
   moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The parties agreed
   on the legal question at issue—namely, whether NEPA and related
   regulations impose on the Corps a discrete duty to act that a federal court can
   compel it to honor under APA § 706(1)—but disagreed on the answer to the
   question. After extensive jurisdictional discovery, the district court
   construed the Corps’ motion as a motion for summary judgment5 and
   dismissed the plaintiffs’ NEPA claims. This appeal followed.
                                                II
           At bottom, this case presents just one legal question—namely, do
   NEPA and its regulatory progeny obligate the Corps to prepare a
   supplemental EIS as the plaintiffs seek to compel under APA § 706(1)? That
   question, in turn, hinges on a single factual question—namely, does “major
   Federal action” remain outstanding to necessitate the Corps’ preparation of
   a supplemental EIS under applicable laws and regulations? As we explain
   below, the answer to both questions is no, and that itself is dispositive, for
   without the jurisdictional hook supplied by the APA’s narrow waiver of
   sovereign immunity, there is no basis for jurisdiction in this suit against a
   nonconsenting federal agency.

           5
             Because the Corps’ entitlement to sovereign immunity (and, consequently, the
   presence or lack of federal jurisdiction over the NEPA aspects of this case) is inextricably
   intertwined with the merits of the plaintiffs’ NEPA claims, the district court was correct
   to construe and resolve the Corps’ motion to dismiss on sovereign immunity grounds as an
   attack on the merits. See M.D.C.G. v. United States, 956 F.3d 762, 768–69 (5th Cir. 2020)
   (“[W]hen the issue of jurisdiction is intertwined with the merits, district courts should
   ‘deal with the objection as a direct attack on the merits of the plaintiff’s case under either
   Rule 12(b)(6) or Rule 56.’” (quoting Montez v. Dep’t of Navy, 392 F.3d 147, 150 (5th Cir.
   2004))).

                                                 5
Case: 21-60897      Document: 00516690185           Page: 6     Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                     No. 21-60897

                                           A
          Questions of subject matter jurisdiction are reviewed de novo. Borden
   v. Allstate Ins. Co., 589 F.3d 168, 170 (5th Cir. 2009). By the same token,
   “[w]hether the United States is entitled to sovereign immunity is a question
   of law which this court reviews de novo.” Koehler v. United States, 153 F.3d
   263, 265 (5th Cir. 1998). Likewise, “[w]e review a grant of summary
   judgment de novo, viewing all the evidence in the light most favorable to the
   nonmoving party and drawing all reasonable inferences in that party’s
   favor.” Parm v. Shumate, 513 F.3d 135, 142 (5th Cir. 2007) (citing Crawford
   v. Formosa Plastics Corp., 234 F.3d 899, 902 (5th Cir. 2000)).
                                           B
          “It is well settled that the United States may not be sued except to the
   extent that it has consented to suit by statute.” Id. “Consequently, no suit
   may be maintained against the United States unless the suit is brought in
   exact compliance with the terms of a statute under which the sovereign has
   consented to be sued.” Id. As such, “[w]here the United States has not
   consented to suit or the plaintiff has not met the terms of the statute, the
   court lacks jurisdiction and the action must be dismissed.” Id. at 266.
          Because the Corps does not consent to the plaintiffs’ suit here, this
   case may only proceed in federal court if the plaintiffs can show that a
   statutory waiver supplies a basis for overcoming the Corps’ sovereign
   immunity. To that end, the plaintiffs point exclusively to § 702 of the APA,
   which waives federal sovereign immunity in federal actions “seeking relief
   other than money damages and stating a claim that an agency . . . acted or
   failed to act in an official capacity or under color of legal authority.” 5 U.S.C.
   § 702. Caselaw has confined this right of review to cases in which a plaintiff
   can “identify some ‘agency action’ affecting him in a specific way” and
   “show that he has ‘suffered legal wrong because of the challenged agency

                                           6
Case: 21-60897          Document: 00516690185               Page: 7      Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                           No. 21-60897

   action, or is adversely affected or aggrieved by that action within the meaning
   of a relevant statute.’” Ala.-Coushatta Tribe of Tex. v. United States, 757 F.3d
   484, 489 (5th Cir. 2014) (quoting Lujan v. Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n, 497 U.S. 871,
   882–83 (1990)). “Agency action” can encompass agency inaction as well,6
   and the statute provides redress to plaintiffs aggrieved by an agency’s failure
   to act by requiring courts to “compel agency action unlawfully withheld” in
   § 706(1). Important here, the Supreme Court has held that a claim under
   § 706(1) “can proceed only where a plaintiff asserts that an agency failed to
   take a discrete agency action that it is required to take.” Norton v. S. Utah
   Wilderness All. (SUWA), 542 U.S. 55, 64 (2004).
          In search of a discrete obligation to act with which the Corps has
   unlawfully failed to comply here, the plaintiffs look to NEPA, and
   specifically to that statute’s requirement that agencies supplement EISs
   when certain criteria are met. Ultimately though, their attempt in this regard
   is one of square pegs and round holes. A short analysis shows why.
                                                 C
          To determine whether the Corps has failed to meet its legal
   obligations, we naturally must delineate what those obligations are. In this
   respect, the statute, regulations stemming from it, and binding caselaw tell
   us all we need to know.
          NEPA requires federal agencies to prepare an EIS for all “major
   Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human
   environment.” 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C); SUWA, 542 U.S. at 72. “Often an
   initial EIS is sufficient, but in certain circumstances an EIS must be
   supplemented.” SUWA, 542 U.S. at 72. NEPA regulations specify those

          6
              See 5 U.S.C. § 551(13) (defining “agency action” as, inter alia, “failure to act”).

                                                  7
Case: 21-60897        Document: 00516690185             Page: 8      Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                         No. 21-60897

   circumstances. As the relevant rule, § 1502.9(d)(1), now provides,7 agencies
   shall prepare supplemental EISs when “a major Federal action remains to
   occur, and: (i) The agency makes substantial changes to the proposed action
   that are relevant to environmental concerns; or (ii) There are significant new
   circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns and
   bearing on the proposed action or its impacts.” 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(d)(1).
   The Supreme Court has accordingly held that supplementation is “necessary
   only if ‘there remains “major Federal actio[n]” to occur,’ as that term is used
   in § 4332(2)(C).” SUWA, 542 U.S. at 73 (alteration in original) (quoting
   Marsh v. Or. Nat. Res. Council, 490 U.S. 360, 374 (1989)).
           Thus arises the crux of the matter here—does “major Federal action”
   remain outstanding in this case that would necessitate the Corps’ preparation
   of a supplemental EIS? On this decisive question, the parties engage in a
   classic battle of framing. The plaintiffs zoom out to focus on the MR&T as a
   whole, observing that at least $8.4 billion of “authorized work” remains on
   the broader project of which the Spillway plays just a part. The Corps, by
   contrast, zooms in to focus on the Spillway in particular, noting that the
   Spillway “has been fully constructed for 90 years, and [that] the Corps
   continues to apply the same operational criteria set out in the [S]pillway’s
   foundational design documents.”
           Whatever the merits of their dueling perspectives in the abstract, both
   the plaintiffs’ and the Corps’ principal cases—Marsh and SUWA,
   respectively—favor the Corps. Start with Marsh. There, the Supreme Court

           7
            It bears noting that the form of the rule has been amended in the years since the
   Supreme Court’s decisions in SUWA and Marsh v. Oregon Natural Resources Council “to
   improve readability” and enhance “clarity.” See Update to the Regulations Implementing
   the Procedural Provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act, 85 Fed. Reg. 43,304,
   43,328–29 (July 16, 2020). The pertinent language remains unchanged as a substantive
   matter, however, so we apply the Supreme Court’s precedents in this area with full force.

                                               8
Case: 21-60897     Document: 00516690185           Page: 9   Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                    No. 21-60897

   observed that the language in what is now § 1502.9(d)(1) obligates agencies
   to supplement an EIS in situations where supplementation serves NEPA’s
   requirement “that agencies take a ‘hard look’ at the environmental effects of
   their planned action.” Marsh, 490 U.S. at 373–74 (emphasis added). Making
   clear that an agency’s inquiry is forward-looking in nature and pertaining to
   the environmental impact of projects to come or under consideration, the Court
   articulated a rule of reason that “turns on the value of the new information
   to the still pending decisionmaking process.” Id. at 374 (emphasis added).
   Thus, the Court concluded,
          In this respect the decision whether to prepare a supplemental
          EIS is similar to the decision whether to prepare an EIS in the
          first instance: If there remains “major Federal actio[n]” to
          occur, and if the new information is sufficient to show that the
          remaining action will “affec[t] the quality of the human
          environment” in a significant manner or to a significant extent
          not already considered, a supplemental EIS must be prepared.
   Id. (alterations in original) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C)).
          Applying that language here places the fatal flaw with the plaintiffs’
   argument in stark relief—while the plaintiffs identify an abundance of new
   information regarding the Spillway’s usage and impacts, they identify no
   pending decisionmaking regarding the Spillway that might hinge on the Corps’
   consideration of that new information. As an attempted end-around, the
   plaintiffs press that ongoing construction elsewhere in the MR&T and
   deficient levees downstream of the Spillway convert the Spillway into the
   kind of “proposed action” that requires supplemental environmental
   assessment. But this is a stretch. As the Corps correctly counters,
   “[r]egardless of whether some structures within the [MR&T] are currently
   under construction, any new information yielded by further analysis of the
   [S]pillway’s impacts could have no effect on the construction or design of the
   Spillway itself,” which indeed is both a completed project and what this case

                                         9
Case: 21-60897        Document: 00516690185               Page: 10        Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                           No. 21-60897

   is really about (which is to say, the aspect of the MR&T that is the most
   direct and proximate cause of the plaintiffs’ environmental injuries).
   Moreover, as the district court observed, the plaintiffs’ “claim that the Corps
   should be required to supplement the EIS because the [Spillway] is
   sometimes operated to protect . . . deficient levees” fares no better as a
   matter of law or logic, for indeed, deficient downstream levees were the very
   reason for the Spillway in the first place.8
           For much the same reason, this case bears a striking resemblance with
   SUWA. Presented there with a plaintiff’s argument that increased off-road
   vehicle use was harming wilderness under Bureau of Land Management
   stewardship, the Supreme Court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the
   increase at issue constituted “significant new circumstances or information”
   requiring a supplemental EIS. See SUWA, 542 U.S. at 73. The Court
   distinguished Marsh in doing so. Whereas Marsh involved a damming project
   that was incomplete, SUWA involved a land use plan that was a done deal.
   Id. As a consequence, “[t]he land use plan [was] the ‘proposed action’
   contemplated by [§ 1502.9(d)(1)]” and there was accordingly “no ongoing
   ‘major Federal action’ that could require supplementation.” Id. The
   parallels here are clear. Like the finalized land use plan at issue in SUWA,
   and unlike the unfinished dams at issue in Marsh, the Spillway is a fixture of

           8
              This was also the subject of a 1984 operating manual—amended in 1999—that
   adheres substantially to the original MR&T plan set forth in 1927. The district court
   correctly found that the plaintiffs failed to identify any forthcoming changes to the Manual
   and lacked any claim that the adoption or amendment of the Manual triggered
   supplemental EIS obligations by virtue of the six-year statute of limitations for civil actions
   against the United States. See 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a); Davis Mountains Trans-Pecos Heritage
   Ass’n v. FAA, 116 F. App’x 3, 17 (5th Cir. 2004) (holding “that a claim for agency delay in
   supplementing NEPA documents accrues when circumstances requiring supplementation
   first arise”).

                                                 10
Case: 21-60897        Document: 00516690185               Page: 11        Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                           No. 21-60897

   the MR&T that has been operational and materially unchanged for more
   than 90 years.
           In light of the foregoing, NEPA, § 1502.9(d)(1), and Supreme Court
   precedent make clear that significant new circumstances alone do not
   necessarily obligate an agency to prepare a supplemental EIS, no matter how
   great their influence on the environmental concerns NEPA was enacted to
   address. To the contrary, the Act and regulations require that significant new
   circumstances have a bearing on federal actions still being considered. The
   Corps’ continued operation of the Spillway under long-established plans is
   no such thing.9
           In an alternative attempt to avoid dismissal, the plaintiffs argue that
   the Corps’ operation of the Spillway is so different today as to fall beyond
   “the contemplation of the project when originally approved”—and thus, to
   constitute new “major Federal action” in and of itself. But this argument,
   too, is unavailing. To be sure, the record documents at least one occasion in
   2019 when the Corps opened the Spillway at a flow rate below the originally
   contemplated 1.25 million cfs threshold and left the Spillway open when river
   flow had subsided to a flow rate below the same threshold.10 However, this
   one-off episode falls within the discretion the Corps must be afforded to

           9
             The plaintiffs’ equation of the Corps’ acknowledgment that opening the Spillway
   constitutes an “agency action” for the unrelated purposes of the Endangered Species Act
   with a tacit admission that opening the Spillway is a “major Federal action” under NEPA
   is dismissed out of hand. In fact, the case the plaintiffs cite in that regard itself disclaims
   the theory the plaintiffs advance. See Marbled Murrelet v. Babbitt, 83 F.3d 1068, 1075 (9th
   Cir. 1996) (making the obvious observation that “[i]f there is any difference” between the
   phrases federal action and major federal action, major federal action would be “the more
   exclusive standard”).
           10
              As we previously noted, the original plan calls for usage of the Spillway to be “cut
   off as soon as” flow exceeding 1.25 million cfs subsides.

                                                 11
Case: 21-60897       Document: 00516690185             Page: 12      Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                        No. 21-60897

   operate the Spillway in a reasonable manner11 and, more importantly, does
   not mark a change in the Corps’ considered-and-decided plan for operating
   the Spillway in the regular course of business. In a similar case, the Ninth
   Circuit drew an appropriate distinction between an agency’s “routine
   managerial actions regularly carried on from the outset [of a project] without
   change,” and actions “more extensive, [or] other than that contemplated
   when the project was first operational.” See Upper Snake River Chapter of
   Trout Unltd. v. Hodel, 921 F.2d 232, 235 (9th Cir. 1990). The latter change in
   course would necessitate a supplemental EIS; the former did not.
           Such is the case here as well. Despite the plaintiffs’ protestations to
   the contrary, the episodes the plaintiffs cite—in which the Corps opened the
   Spillway when river flow was merely predicted to exceed 1.25 million cfs, and
   in which the Corps left the Spillway open to protect workers and downstream
   levees—do not mark a shift in managerial philosophy or planning, but merely
   the “routine managerial actions” of an agency tasked with operating a
   complex and important piece of infrastructure. Cf. id. Indeed, for all the
   parties’ factual sparring on the matter, one decisive fact remains: the
   Spillway and the Corps’ criteria for operating it remain unchanged, so this
   situation does not call for the kind of forward-looking “decisionmaking
   process” regarding a new “major Federal action” that requires a
   supplemental EIS. See Marsh, 490 U.S. at 374. Continued implementation
   of a preexisting policy (even under shifting conditions) and adoption or
   consideration of a new policy are birds of a different feather. Only the latter
   form of agency action requires supplementation of an existing EIS—ruling

           11
             Reading NEPA and § 1502.9(d)(1) as a trapdoor requiring agencies to prepare a
   supplemental EIS any time their actions differ in any regard from a plan that has already
   been the subject of an original EIS would blow a hole in the Supreme Court’s “rule of
   reason” and unreasonably hamper agency action.

                                              12
Case: 21-60897     Document: 00516690185           Page: 13   Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                    No. 21-60897

   otherwise would create a freestanding obligation to supplement that would
   subject certain agencies to a never-ending game of environmental Whac-A-
   Mole. In requiring prospective environmental analysis rather than
   retrospective environmental analysis in NEPA, Congress sanctioned no
   such game.
          What is changed in this case is the reality of the conditions in which
   the Corps must operate the Spillway. In this regard, however, the true culprit
   for the plaintiffs’ environmental misfortunes is not the Corps or the Spillway,
   but the environment itself. Regardless of cause, the increased operation of
   the Spillway that aggrieves the plaintiffs and harms the Mississippi Sound is
   traceable to the fact that the Spillway must now be used more often, not that
   it must now be used in defiance of its original operational plan. New plans by
   an agency require a supplemental EIS; new circumstances do not. See, e.g.,
   Upper Snake River, 921 F.2d at 235–36 (Ninth Circuit observing, in a similar
   case, that while “a particular flow rate will vary over time as changing
   weather conditions dictate,” “[w]hat does not change is the [agency’s]
   monitoring and control of the flow rate” in furtherance of the aims of the
   project in question). Extending that apt reasoning here, so long as the Corps
   continues to operate the Spillway in accordance with its longstanding plan—
   which predated NEPA by a number of decades, and which was reaffirmed in
   1984 and 1999, see supra note 7—it is not obligated to prepare a supplemental
   EIS with regard to the Spillway.
                                         III
          The upshot of the foregoing analysis is straightforward. Because the
   Corps has no duty to prepare the supplemental EIS the plaintiffs seek, the
   plaintiffs have no APA claim for unlawful agency inaction, and the Corps is
   immune from their suit claiming otherwise. For better or worse, Congress

                                         13
Case: 21-60897    Document: 00516690185           Page: 14   Date Filed: 03/27/2023

                                   No. 21-60897

   and the Corps have authority to act on the plaintiffs’ dire environmental
   concerns. The federal courts do not.
         Accordingly, the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ NEPA
   claims is AFFIRMED.

                                          14