Court Opinion

ID: 9965473
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-05-02 16:01:05.610438+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:25:06.656724
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11079   Document: 42-1    Date Filed: 05/02/2024   Page: 1 of 26

                                                           [PUBLISH]

                                 In the

                 United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                         ____________________

                               No. 22-11079
                         ____________________

        CENTER FOR A SUSTAINABLE COAST,
        KAREN GRAINEY,
                                                  Plaintiﬀs-Appellants,
        versus

        U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS,
        DISTRICT COMMANDER AND DISTRICT ENGINEER, U.S.
        Army Corps of Engineers,
        Savannah District,

                                                Defendants-Appellees.

                         ____________________
USCA11 Case: 22-11079        Document: 42-1         Date Filed: 05/02/2024      Page: 2 of 26

        2                         Opinion of the Court                    22-11079

                    Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Southern District of Georgia
                     D.C. Docket No. 2:19-cv-00058-LGW-BWC
                              ____________________

        Before GRANT, TJOFLAT, Circuit Judges, and HUFFAKER,∗ District
        Judge.
        GRANT, Circuit Judge:
               This is a classic procedural rights case. The Center for a
        Sustainable Coast, along with its member, Karen Grainey, sued the
        U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, upset that the Corps had issued a
        dock permit without full environmental review under the National
        Environmental Policy Act. The Center established injury by
        showing that several of its members regularly visit Cumberland
        Island, where the dock is sited, and suﬀer an ongoing aesthetic
        injury on those visits. The Center also showed that the
        environmental review the Corps skipped could have protected that
        interest, at least in theory.
               That should have been enough. For procedural rights cases,
        though injury in fact remains a ﬁrm requirement, standards for
        both causation and redressability are relaxed. So long as a plaintiﬀ
        alleges that the challenged (or omitted) procedure protects a
        concrete interest, causation and redressability typically follow—

        ∗ The Honorable R. Austin Huffaker, Jr., United States District Judge for the

        Middle District of Alabama, sitting by designation.
USCA11 Case: 22-11079     Document: 42-1     Date Filed: 05/02/2024    Page: 3 of 26

        22-11079              Opinion of the Court                       3

        even though we can’t know whether that procedure, correctly
        performed, would have resulted in the substantive outcome that
        the plaintiﬀ desires.
              Here, though, the district court dismissed the lawsuit,
        concluding that the Center did not have standing because its harm
        was not redressable. The dock, it said, had already been built, so
        the court’s ability to provide relief had ended along with
        construction.
               We disagree. To start, the allegations here mirror those in
        other cases where this Court has found standing. The Center has
        identiﬁed a concrete aesthetic interest and pleaded that the NEPA
        process would protect that interest. Directing full NEPA review
        would thus redress the Center’s procedural injury. Plus, the permit
        here does more than allow construction—it authorizes the dock’s
        continued existence. So this case is not like the narrow set of
        procedural rights cases in which the plaintiﬀs’ claims were
        dismissed as moot because the challenged project was already
        completed.
              We thus hold that the Center had standing to bring at least
        one of its procedural rights claims. But we ﬁnd the Center’s
        administrative record argument premature for consideration, and
        we aﬃrm the dismissal of the Seashore Act claim, because the
        Center abandoned that argument on appeal.
                                        I.
             Cumberland Island is the largest and southernmost of
        Georgia’s barrier islands. Long used as a vacation retreat by
USCA11 Case: 22-11079      Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2024     Page: 4 of 26

        4                      Opinion of the Court                 22-11079

        various Carnegies and other noteworthy tycoons, most of the
        island is scenic uplands and marshlands. See High Point, LLLP v. Nat’l
        Park Serv., 850 F.3d 1185, 1188 (11th Cir. 2017). The United States
        has since acquired title to most of the island, designating more than
        20,500 acres as wilderness or potential wilderness that is to remain
        in a “primeval” and “undeveloped” state. Id. at 1189, 1191
        (quotation omitted). Still, some land remains in private hands,
        owned mostly by descendants of those who vacationed on the
        island during its heyday. Id. at 1188.
               The status quo on Cumberland Island is maintained by the
        Cumberland Island National Seashore Act, 16 U.S.C. § 459i et seq.
        That Act designates the entire island as a National Seashore, and
        authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to recommend areas for a
        wilderness designation and to purchase or acquire “lands, waters,
        and interests therein.” 16 U.S.C. § 459i, -1, -8. Property acquired
        by the Secretary must, with some exceptions, be preserved “in its
        primitive state,” and “no development of the project or plan for the
        convenience of visitors shall be undertaken which would be
        incompatible with the preservation of the unique ﬂora and fauna
        or the physiographic conditions now prevailing” on the island. Id.
        § 459i-5(b). But the Seashore Act does not prohibit the sale or use
        of private property on the island. See id. § 459i-3; High Point, LLLP,
        850 F.3d at 1189.
               Against that backdrop, Lumar LLC bought an undeveloped
        82-acre residential plot from a private seller in the 1990s. In 2015,
        Lumar petitioned the Army Corps of Engineers for a permit to
USCA11 Case: 22-11079      Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2024      Page: 5 of 26

        22-11079               Opinion of the Court                          5

        build an access dock “adjacent to” its property. Corps approval was
        required under the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, which makes
        it unlawful to build certain structures in navigable rivers or waters
        of the United States unless the plans are “recommended” by the
        Corps and “authorized” by the Secretary of the Army. 33 U.S.C.
        § 403.
                As it exercises that authority, the Corps is bound by the
        National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq. NEPA
        requires a rigorous approval process for any “major” projects,
        including both a formal environmental review and public notice
        and comment. See 33 C.F.R. § 325 app. B at 6a, 7a (2022). But
        sometimes these requirements can be skipped. Corps regulations
        list “categorical exclusions” from NEPA review, one of which is
        “applications which qualify as letters of permission.” Id. § 325 app.
        B at 6a(5). These letters of permission are available when “in the
        opinion of the district engineer, the proposed work would be
        minor, would not have signiﬁcant individual or cumulative impacts
        on environmental values, and should encounter no appreciable
        opposition.” Id. § 325.2(e)(1)(i).
               The Corps issued a letter of permission approving Lumar’s
        proposed 500-square-foot dock—along with a gangway, pier head,
        and 200-foot walkway. That letter allowed the Corps (and Lumar)
        to avoid NEPA’s ordinary approval process. This lawsuit followed
        from the Center for a Sustainable Coast, a 501(c)(3) organization
        whose members “use and enjoy Cumberland Island National
        Seashore for aesthetic, scenic, recreational, historical, cultural, and
USCA11 Case: 22-11079          Document: 42-1          Date Filed: 05/02/2024          Page: 6 of 26

        6                           Opinion of the Court                        22-11079

        scientiﬁc values.”1 The Center asserts that its members suﬀer an
        aesthetic harm each time they view the dock.
               The complaint raises two claims. Count I argues that the
        decision to issue a letter of permission violated the Cumberland
        Island National Seashore Act because the Corps failed to properly
        consider the Act’s mandate to preserve the island’s primitive
        character. Count II alleges that the decision to issue any letter of
        permission was arbitrary and capricious. Instead, the Center
        claims, the Corps should have designated this a “major” project and
        conducted the more robust review required by NEPA. 2
              Rather than address the merits of the Center’s argument,
        the district court granted summary judgment to the Corps,
        concluding that the Center lacked standing. According to the

        1 The lawsuit was not filed until after the dock’s completion. The reasons for

        that delay, including whether Lumar consented to it, are not fully explained
        in the record, but we do not delve into that issue because it is irrelevant to the
        standing inquiry.
        2 Neither NEPA nor the Seashore Act contains a private cause of action.          See
        Noe v. Metro. Atlanta Rapid Transit Auth., 644 F.2d 434, 435–36 (5th Cir. Unit B
        1981); Ctr. for a Sustainable Coast v. Nat’l Park Serv., 454 F. Supp. 3d 1347, 1351
        (S.D. Ga. 2020). Instead, the Center sued under the Administrative Procedure
        Act, see 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), which provides a cause of action to challenge final
        agency action as (among other things) arbitrary and capricious. See Lexmark
        Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 130 (2014) (explaining
        that the APA “permits suit for violations of numerous statutes of varying
        character that do not themselves include causes of action”). Here, the Corps’s
        letter of permission was the final agency action that allowed the Center to
        bring an APA challenge.
USCA11 Case: 22-11079         Document: 42-1        Date Filed: 05/02/2024        Page: 7 of 26

        22-11079                  Opinion of the Court                               7

        district court, every element of standing was present except one:
        redressability. In its view, even if the permitting defects alleged by
        the Center were corrected, the dock would still exist—and so
        would the Center’s aesthetic injury. The Center appeals the district
        court’s conclusion that neither of its claims were redressable. 3
                                              II.
               “We review issues of standing de novo.” Swann v. Sec’y, State
        of Georgia, 668 F.3d 1285, 1288 (11th Cir. 2012) (quotation omitted).
        And we must “assume that on the merits the plaintiﬀs would be
        successful in their claims.” Culverhouse v. Paulson & Co., 813 F.3d
        991, 994 (11th Cir. 2016) (quotation omitted).
                                             III.
                                              A.
                The ﬁrst claim we consider is Count II—the Center’s NEPA
        claim—which the district court dismissed for lack of standing. A
        party has standing when it “(1) suﬀered an injury in fact, (2) that is
        fairly traceable to the challenged conduct of the defendant, and
        (3) that is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.”

        3 The Center also urges us to review the district court’s decision to grant the

        Corps’s motion to strike extra-record materials and confine the merits review
        to the administrative record. But that would be premature. Faced with a
        similar situation, the Ninth Circuit held that it did not need to address the
        parties’ motions for judicial notice because they did not affect the resolution
        of the standing question. Cantrell v. City of Long Beach, 241 F.3d 674, 680 n.4
        (9th Cir. 2001). So too here, where the district court held that the “disputed
        materials are admissible for standing purposes.”
USCA11 Case: 22-11079       Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2024      Page: 8 of 26

        8                       Opinion of the Court                  22-11079

        Muransky v. Godiva Chocolatier, Inc., 979 F.3d 917, 924 (11th Cir. 2020)
        (en banc) (quotation omitted).
                We start with the “hard ﬂoor of Article III jurisdiction that
        cannot be removed by statute”—injury in fact. Summers v. Earth
        Island Inst., 555 U.S. 488, 497 (2009). The Corps argued below that
        there was no such injury. But it no longer challenges that
        conclusion, and for good reason. At bottom, the Center’s members
        allege an aesthetic injury from viewing the dock, which is a
        concrete interest. See Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 562–63
        (1992). They also allege a procedural harm related to the
        protection of that aesthetic injury: that the Corps failed to
        complete the full NEPA process (including a formal environmental
        review), choosing instead to issue a letter of permission. Finally,
        they connect that procedural harm with their concrete injury—if
        the full NEPA process had been followed, they argue, the dock
        would not have received a permit, which would have protected
        their well-pleaded aesthetic interests.
                The injury here is identical to the one we encountered in
        Ouachita Watch League v. Jacobs, where we outlined what was
        necessary to show injury in fact in a procedural rights case: “a
        plaintiﬀ must allege that the agency violated certain procedural
        rules, that these rules protect a plaintiﬀ’s concrete interests and that
        it is reasonably probable that the challenged action will threaten
        these concrete interests.” 463 F.3d 1163, 1170 (11th Cir. 2006). We
        even mapped these points onto the NEPA context, explaining that
        “a cognizable procedural injury exists when a plaintiﬀ alleges that
USCA11 Case: 22-11079          Document: 42-1          Date Filed: 05/02/2024          Page: 9 of 26

        22-11079                    Opinion of the Court                                  9

        a proper [environmental impact statement] has not been prepared”
        and “also alleges a concrete interest—such as an aesthetic or
        recreational interest—that is threatened by the proposed actions.”
        Id. at 1171 (quotations omitted). The Center’s claim matches these
        elements point-by-point, establishing injury in fact.4
               The connection between the Center’s aesthetic harm and its
        procedural rights claim establishes the second standing element—
        causation—which has never been disputed here. After all, once a
        “plaintiﬀ has established injury in fact under NEPA,” the causation
        requirement is “generally more relaxed.” Id. at 1172.
              Only one pillar of standing remains—redressability. 5 To
        decide that issue, we usually ask whether “a court decision can

        4 It is undisputed that the Center has associational standing as an organization

        to sue on behalf of its members. See Ouachita Watch League, 463 F.3d at 1170–
        73.
        5 The district court also referenced several “prudential limits on standing,”

        including that a plaintiff fall within the zone of interests to be protected by the
        statute. See Ctr. for a Sustainable Coast v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, No. 2:19-CV-
        58, 2022 WL 202893, at *4 (S.D. Ga. Jan. 21, 2022). But in Lexmark, the
        Supreme Court rejected the zone-of-interest test as a part of the standing
        inquiry and noted that as a general matter prudential standing requirements
        are “in some tension” with “the principle that a federal court’s obligation to
        hear and decide cases within its jurisdiction is virtually unflagging.” Lexmark
        Int’l, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc., 572 U.S. 118, 126 (2014) (quotations
        omitted). After Lexmark, this Court has omitted the zone-of-interest question
        from our standing analysis, so the district court’s consideration of it here was
        probably also unnecessary. See id. at 127–32; see also Kurapati v. U.S. Bureau of
        Citizenship & Immigr. Servs., 775 F.3d 1255, 1260 (11th Cir. 2014). Still, because
USCA11 Case: 22-11079        Document: 42-1         Date Filed: 05/02/2024        Page: 10 of 26

        10                        Opinion of the Court                       22-11079

        either eliminate the harm or compensate for it.” Muransky, 979
        F.3d at 924. And it “must be the eﬀect of the court’s judgment on
        the defendant—not an absent third party—that redresses the
        plaintiﬀ’s injury, whether directly or indirectly.” Lewis v. Governor
        of Alabama, 944 F.3d 1287, 1301 (11th Cir. 2019) (en banc)
        (quotation and emphasis omitted).
               But redressability looks a little diﬀerent for so-called
        procedural rights. Like causation, redressability is relaxed once a
        plaintiﬀ establishes injury in fact under NEPA. Ouachita Watch
        League, 463 F.3d at 1172. So a plaintiﬀ with “a procedural right to
        protect his concrete interests can assert that right without meeting
        all the normal standards for redressability and immediacy.” See
        Lujan, 504 U.S. at 572 n.7. 6
                Recognizing these relaxed requirements, we have explained
        that a plaintiﬀ bringing a NEPA challenge need not show with
        certainty that vindicating a procedural right will eliminate a non-
        procedural injury in fact. Ouachita Watch League, 463 F.3d at 1172;
        see also Summers, 555 U.S. at 496–97. Instead, when “a litigant is
        vested with a procedural right, that litigant has standing if there is
        some possibility that the requested relief will prompt the injury-

        neither the district court below nor the parties on appeal rely on this zone-of-
        interest reasoning, we do not consider it further here.
        6 We reemphasize that “deprivation of a procedural right without some

        concrete interest that is affected by the deprivation—a procedural right in
        vacuo—is insufficient to create Article III standing.” Summers, 555 U.S. at 496;
        accord Sierra Club v. Johnson, 436 F.3d 1269, 1277 (11th Cir. 2006).
USCA11 Case: 22-11079        Document: 42-1         Date Filed: 05/02/2024         Page: 11 of 26

        22-11079                   Opinion of the Court                               11

        causing party to reconsider the decision that allegedly harmed the
        litigant.” Cahaba Riverkeeper v. EPA, 938 F.3d 1157, 1162 (11th Cir.
        2019) (emphasis added) (quotation omitted). And that makes
        sense; if certainty about future administrative outcomes was
        needed to show standing, citizen-suit provisions “would be a dead
        letter.” Sugar Cane Growers Co-Op of Florida v. Veneman, 289 F.3d 89,
        95 (D.C. Cir. 2002). 7
                Those principles decide this case. The procedural injury
        here is the Corps’s failure to comply with NEPA, and “that injury
        is plainly redressable.” Ouachita Watch League, 463 F.3d at 1173. In
        fact, redressability in circumstances like these is ordinarily seen as
        so obvious that we have dispatched with it in just a few sentences.
        See id. at 1173; Cahaba Riverkeeper, 938 F.3d at 1163. Here, the
        district court could vacate the letter of permission through a court
        order, remand to the Corps for new proceedings under NEPA, or
        both. 8 Each of those options would redress the Center’s
        procedural injury.

        7 The dissent is laser-focused on whether the district court could grant the

        Center the ultimate relief it seeks—removal of the dock. See Dissent at 5–10.
        That perspective reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the
        Center’s injury and of the relief it seeks in this lawsuit. The Center does not
        allege only an aesthetic injury. It also alleges a procedural injury connected to
        the protection of that aesthetic interest: the Corps’s failure to conduct full
        NEPA review. By focusing exclusively on what relief would remedy the
        Center’s aesthetic injury, the dissent ignores how a court could remedy the
        Center’s procedural harm—by requiring process.
        8 Vindicating the Center’s rights does not require immediate vacatur of the

        permit—the district court could conceivably keep the letter of permission in
USCA11 Case: 22-11079         Document: 42-1         Date Filed: 05/02/2024         Page: 12 of 26

        12                         Opinion of the Court                        22-11079

               To be sure, it is possible that the Corps could complete the
        additional NEPA review that the Center seeks and still approve the
        dock. But a plaintiﬀ has standing to sue over a procedural right
        “even though he cannot establish with any certainty that the
        [environmental impact] statement will cause the license to be
        withheld or altered.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 572 n.7 (emphasis added).
        Here, there is undoubtedly “some possibility” that diﬀerent
        procedural inputs would lead to a diﬀerent substantive outcome—
        deauthorization of the dock after a full environmental review. See
        Cahaba Riverkeeper, 938 F.3d at 1162 (quotation omitted). That is
        enough for standing in a procedural rights case. 9

        place while remanding to the Corps for further proceedings under NEPA. See
        Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 781 F.3d 1271, 1289–
        90 (11th Cir. 2015); Stephanie J. Tatham, The Unusual Remedy of Remand
        Without Vacatur, Admin. Conf. of the U.S. 49 (2014).
        9 The dissent, for its part, ignores these longstanding Eleventh Circuit and

        Supreme Court precedents, and it marshals no standing cases in support of its
        own position. Instead, it focuses on questions that this Court was not tasked
        with answering—such as whether the Center could petition the Corps under
        33 C.F.R. § 325.7 for removal of the dock, or the effect of such a petition on
        speculative future litigation. See, e.g., Dissent at 1, 5–10. Perhaps the Center
        could have filed such a petition. But that does not make this action improper
        (and certainly does not deprive the plaintiffs of standing). The APA’s citizen-
        suit provision extends judicial review to any “person suffering legal wrong
        because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action
        within the meaning of a relevant statute.” 5 U.S.C. § 702. The Center relied
        on this provision to file suit, pleading that the Corps’s failure to abide by NEPA
        was a procedural harm. The only thing we need to consider is whether it has
        standing to file such a claim, and our precedents establish that it does.
USCA11 Case: 22-11079        Document: 42-1         Date Filed: 05/02/2024         Page: 13 of 26

        22-11079                   Opinion of the Court                               13

                                               B.
              Both the district court and the Corps see things diﬀerently.
        They suggest that this ordinary conclusion is precluded because the
        dock is already built. Deauthorizing a construction permit for a
        completed project, they say, is meaningless.
                To start, that contention goes to mootness, not
        redressability. But a more fundamental problem is that the letter
        of permission here is not limited to construction. As the Corps
        concedes, its permit authorizes both the temporary construction
        and the subsequent existence of the dock. See 33 C.F.R. § 325.6(a). So
        if the letter of permission is rescinded, Lumar’s right to maintain
        the dock will disappear along with it. 10 That alone makes this case
        diﬀerent from other NEPA suits where completed construction
        mooted actions involving construction-only permits. See Save the
        Bay, Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 639 F.2d 1100, 1103 (5th Cir.
        1981); Florida Wildlife Fed’n v. Goldschmidt, 611 F.2d 547, 549 (5th Cir.
        1980). 11

        10 The letter of permission explicitly contemplated the possibility of its own

        rescission. Lumar was warned that the Corps “may reevaluate its decision on
        this permit at any time the circumstances warrant,” including if significant
        “new information surfaces which this office did not consider in reaching the
        original public interest decision.”
        11 See Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1207, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en

        banc) (adopting as binding precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit
        handed down before the close of business on September 30, 1981).
USCA11 Case: 22-11079     Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2024     Page: 14 of 26

        14                     Opinion of the Court                 22-11079

                The failure to recognize the diﬀerence between those cases
        and this one is also reﬂected in another ﬂaw in the Corps’s
        argument—its failure to concede the nature of a successful
        outcome in a procedural rights case. The Corps emphasizes the
        district court’s conclusion that it can neither order the dock torn
        down nor order the Corps to initiate enforcement action to remove
        it. See Ctr. for a Sustainable Coast v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, No.
        2:19-CV-58, 2022 WL 202893, at *6 (S.D. Ga. Jan. 21, 2022). True.
        But focusing on whether the court could demand the dock’s
        destruction misunderstands what the Center is seeking in this
        action—NEPA review. See, e.g., Lujan, 504 U.S. at 572 n.7
        (hypothetical plaintiﬀ would have standing to challenge failure to
        prepare an environmental impact statement); Sierra Club v. Johnson,
        436 F.3d 1269, 1275, 1278–79 (11th Cir. 2006) (standing to challenge
        existing permit for insuﬃcient public notice and comment). The
        real question is whether the court can oﬀer relief for the plaintiﬀ’s
        alleged procedural harm.
               Here, the Center’s NEPA claim (Count II) is a procedural
        rights claim. So what matters is that the administrative process the
        Center seeks would create some possibility that the Corps would
        rescind the permit, which still authorizes the continued existence
        of the dock. Maybe NEPA review would result in the denial of the
        dock permit; maybe not. But the answer to that question is
        irrelevant for the purposes of this standing analysis. A procedural
USCA11 Case: 22-11079        Document: 42-1         Date Filed: 05/02/2024         Page: 15 of 26

        22-11079                   Opinion of the Court                               15

        violation is remedied by process, and so long as that process
        protects a concrete interest, the plaintiﬀ has shown redressability.12
                                              IV.
              We now turn to the Center’s arguments in Count I—that the
        Corps violated the Seashore Act when it issued the letter of
        permission. The Center has abandoned this claim by failing to
        speciﬁcally argue it on appeal. See, e.g., Wood v. Raﬀensperger, 981
        F.3d 1307, 1316 (11th Cir. 2020). The Center did not cite the
        Seashore Act’s text once in its standing analysis. The Center should
        have preserved its arguments about Count I by raising them

        12 We reject the dissent’s contention that the Center’s suit will result in a

        “hypothetical district court decision.” Dissent at 10. To the contrary, vacatur
        under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)—“the ordinary APA remedy”—would operate on the
        Corps’s final agency action. Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Inc. v. U.S. Army Corps
        of Eng’rs, 781 F.3d 1271, 1289–90 (11th Cir. 2015) (quotation omitted).
        Respectfully, it is the dissent that spends pages discussing hypotheticals—
        whether it be alternative avenues for relief, predicted behavior of the parties
        (and non-parties), or supposed future lawsuits. See id. at 5–8. For our part, the
        only question we are concerned with is whether the Center has alleged a
        procedural injury. It has.
        Along the same lines, the dissent accuses the majority of “not point[ing] to
        which action, from among those asserted by the Center, that the Corps was
        required to take.” Dissent at 5 n.3 (emphasis added). Of course we do not—
        the question on appeal is whether the Center had standing, not how the merits
        of the case should be resolved. From this lack of merits analysis, the dissent
        infers that the Center has not alleged any “discrete agency action that [the
        Corps] is required to take.” Id. (emphasis and quotation omitted). That, too,
        is incorrect. In Count II, the Center asserts that the Corps was required to
        engage in full NEPA review before issuing the letter of permission.
USCA11 Case: 22-11079     Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2024     Page: 16 of 26

        16                     Opinion of the Court                 22-11079

        “plainly and prominently,” perhaps by “devoting a discrete section
        of [its] argument to those claims.” Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins.
        Co., 739 F.3d 678, 681 (11th Cir. 2014) (quotation omitted).
               Because the Center abandoned its argument here, we aﬃrm
        the lower court’s decision that the Center lacked standing to bring
        Count I. But the Center may still argue (as part of Count II) that
        the Seashore Act is one reason that issuing a letter of permission
        rather than completing a NEPA review was arbitrary and
        capricious.
                                 *      *      *
               The Center’s NEPA claim satisﬁes the threshold for
        redressability that we employ in cases involving procedural
        rights—there is some possibility that the requested relief (NEPA
        review) will prompt the Corps to reconsider its decision to allow
        the dock. Consequently, we REVERSE the district court’s decision
        to grant summary judgment for lack of standing on the NEPA
        claim in Count II, but AFFIRM as to the Seashore Act claim in
        Count I.
USCA11 Case: 22-11079     Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2024     Page: 17 of 26

        22-11079               TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting                      1

        TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge, Dissenting:
               The Center for a Sustainable Coast is seeking the removal of
        Lumar’s dock that has already been constructed oﬀ Cumberland
        Island. That is the Center’s objective. The majority allows the
        Center to obtain a judgment against the U.S. Army Corps of
        Engineers that will be of absolutely no value to the Center in
        pursuing its objective. A favorable judgment in this case will have
        no legal eﬀect on Lumar because Lumar is not party and will not
        be in privity with the Corps. The Center could ask the Corps to
        revoke Lumar’s permit pursuant to 33 C.F.R. § 325.7, but for
        reasons not apparent in the record, it has chosen not to do so.
               Before elaborating on why the path the Center is taking will
        not grant it the relief it seeks, I describe the applicable regulatory
        structure.
                             I. Regulatory Structure
               Lumar LLC owns a plot of land on Cumberland Island. It
        wanted a dock to access its land. Because this dock would extend
        into the navigable rivers or waters of the United States, its
        construction would be subject to the Rivers and Harbors Act of
        1899, the Clean Water Act, and several other laws and regulations.
        The Army Corps of Engineers has designed a system to ensure
        compliance with all of these sources of law. See 33 C.F.R. pt. 325
        (outlining the process for applying for and obtaining a Department
        of the Army (DA) Permit). The Corps is also required to follow
        the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and it has set forth
        “procedural guidance for preparing and processing NEPA
USCA11 Case: 22-11079       Document: 42-1        Date Filed: 05/02/2024         Page: 18 of 26

        2                        TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting                    22-11079

        documents for regulatory actions” in 33 C.F.R. Part 325, Appendix
        B. Id. § 230.1.
               A DA permit may take the form of an individual permit or
        a general permit. Id. § 325.5(a)(1). Individual permits are issued on
        a form, ENG Form 1721, 1 or, alternatively, in the form of a letter
        of permission (LOP).2 Id. § 325.5(b). An LOP will be issued when
        § 325.2(e)(1)’s procedures have been followed. Id. § 325.5(b)(2).
        Section 325.2(e)(1) states LOPs may be used for projects “subject to
        section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 when, in the
        opinion of the district engineer, the proposed work would be
        minor, would not have signiﬁcant individual or cumulative impacts
        on environmental values, and should encounter no appreciable
        opposition.” Id. § 325.2(e)(1)(i). Importantly, “[a]ll applications
        which qualify as letters of permission” under § 325.5(b)(2) are also
        “not considered to be major Federal actions signiﬁcantly aﬀecting
        the quality of the human environment and are therefore
        categorically excluded from NEPA documentation.” Id. pt. 325,
        App. B at 6a(5). “Fixed or ﬂoating small private piers” and “small
        docks” are also subject to this categorical exclusion. Id. at 6a(1).
              The Corps issued Lumar an LOP to build the dock at issue
        here. The LOP contained General Conditions. One of the

        1 ENG Form 1721 can be found in 33 C.F.R. Part 325, Appendix A.      33 C.F.R.
        325.5(a)(1).
        2 The regulation does not prescribe the use of a specific form.   Rather, each
        LOP is framed to meet the exigencies of the situation at hand.
USCA11 Case: 22-11079      Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2024     Page: 19 of 26

        22-11079               TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting                       3

        conditions read as follows: “The work authorized by this Individual
        Permit is valid for a period of three years from the date of issuance
        unless modiﬁed, suspended or revoked by the District Engineer.”
                          II. Process to Rescind Permit
               The procedure for modifying, suspending, or revoking
        permits issued by the Corps is found in 33 C.F.R. § 325.7. This is
        made clear by the text of the LOP issued to Lumar and ENG Form
        1721. Any permit may be reevaluated by the district engineer “on
        his own motion, at the request of the permittee, or a third party, or
        as the result of periodic progress inspections.” 33 C.F.R. § 325.7(a).
        The district engineer may, in the exercise of his discretion, “initiate
        action to modify, suspend, or revoke a permit as may be made
        necessary by considerations of the public interest.” Id.
              The regulation also provides the factors the district engineer
        should consider in exercising his discretion in deciding whether to
        modify, suspend, or revoke a permit. Id. The factors are:
               [T]he extent of the permittee’s compliance with the
               terms and conditions of the permit; whether or not
               circumstances relating to the authorized activity have
               changed since the permit was issued or extended, and
               the continuing adequacy of or need for the permit
               conditions; any signiﬁcant objections to the
               authorized activity which were not earlier
               considered; revisions to applicable statutory and/or
               regulatory authorities; and the extent to which
               modiﬁcation, suspension, or other action would
               adversely aﬀect plans, investments and actions the
USCA11 Case: 22-11079      Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2024     Page: 20 of 26

        4                      TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting               22-11079

               permittee has reasonably made or taken in reliance on
               the permit.
        Id. These factors are rooted in principles of due process to ensure
        that permittees are on notice of any changes in the circumstances
        and conditions relating to the permit or objections and are treated
        fairly.
                Subsections (b), (c), and (d) of § 325.7 go on to list other
        procedures for the protection of permittees. For example, a
        permittee must be notiﬁed in writing of the district engineer’s
        decision under § 325.7(a). See id. § 325.7(b)–(d). The decision
        becomes eﬀective ten days after the permittee receives the notice
        unless the permittee requests a meeting with the district engineer
        or a public hearing, in which case the eﬀect of the district
        engineer’s decision is held in abeyance. See id. Public hearings are
        governed by 33 C.F.R. Part 327. Id. § 325.7(c); see also id. § 327.3
        (stating “the modiﬁcation, suspension or revocation of any DA
        permit” is the kind of permit action covered by the policies and
        procedures for public hearings contained herein). The steps the
        district engineer may take to enforce a § 325.7 decision are provided
        in 33 C.F.R. Part 326. See id. § 326.1.
               The district engineer may recommend that the Corps
        pursue a criminal or civil action in the U.S. District Court “to obtain
        penalties for violations, compliance with the orders and directives
        he has issued pursuant to §§ 326.3 and 326.4, or other relief as
        appropriate.” Id. § 326.5(a). “Appropriate cases for criminal or civil
        action include, but are not limited to, violations which, in the
USCA11 Case: 22-11079      Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2024      Page: 21 of 26

        22-11079               TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting                        5

        district engineer’s opinion, are willful, repeated, ﬂagrant, or of
        substantial impact.” Id. Part 326 also makes clear that “[n]othing
        contained in this part shall establish a non-discretionary duty on the
        part of district engineers nor shall deviation from these procedures
        give rise to a private right of action against a district engineer.” Id.
        § 326.1.
               It is clear that 33 C.F.R. § 325.7 alone establishes the
        procedure the Center must pursue if its objective is the removal of
        the dock. The Center may request the district engineer to
        reevaluate Lumar’s permit and in his discretion, to “modify,
        suspend, or revoke [its] permit as may be made necessary by
        considerations of the public interest.” See id. § 325.7(a). In
        exercising his discretion, the district engineer would consider
        several factors, such as the substantial investment Lumar made in
        reliance on its permit.
              If the district engineer decides to revoke Lumar’s permit,
        Lumar would likely request a public hearing, which would be
        governed by 33 C.F.R. Part 327. Then, if the decision is sustained
        and the district engineer orders Lumar to remove the dock but
        Lumar fails to remove it, the district engineer will likely invoke the
        procedures of 33 C.F.R. Part 326. The Center cannot avoid § 325.7
        by maintaining this APA action against the Corps and challenging
USCA11 Case: 22-11079         Document: 42-1         Date Filed: 05/02/2024          Page: 22 of 26

        6                          TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting                      22-11079

        the district engineer’s issuance of the LOP to Lumar in the exercise
        of his discretion.3
                        III. Eﬀect of This Judgment on Lumar
                In this lawsuit, the Center seeks an injunctive order requiring
        the Corps to vacate the district engineer’s issuance of Lumar’s LOP
        on the ground that the issuance was arbitrary and capricious. If it
        prevails in this lawsuit, the Center anticipates that the Corps will
        sue Lumar in the same District Court for an injunctive order
        requiring it to tear down the dock. Presumably, the Corps will rely
        for its authority on the District Court’s APA decision, arguing that
        the APA decision of the District Court, as the “rendering court,”
        resolved any issues Lumar might raise in its defense of the Corp’s
        claim for injunctive relief and that the District Court, now
        operating as the “recognizing court,” will be bound to enforce its
        rendering court decision.

        3 5 U.S.C. § 706(1) limits the federal courts’ power on APA review to compel

        agency action. See Norton v. S. Utah Wilderness All., 542 U.S. 55, 63 (2004)
        (“[T]he only agency action that can be compelled under the APA is action
        legally required. . . . Thus, 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.”). The majority does not point to which action, from among
        those asserted by the Center, that the Corps was required to take. As described
        in Parts I and II, issuing and revoking DA permits along with enforcement
        actions for noncompliance with a permit or acting without a permit at all, are
        entirely committed to the agency’s discretion. See 5 U.S.C. § 701(a)(2).
        Therefore, these actions are beyond judicial review.
USCA11 Case: 22-11079       Document: 42-1        Date Filed: 05/02/2024        Page: 23 of 26

        22-11079                 TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting                           7

               I refer to the District Court in its present posture as the
        rendering court and in its position in entertaining the Corps’s
        anticipated lawsuit against Lumar as the recognizing court.
        Presumably, the Corps will tell the recognizing court that it is
        bound by the rendering court’s decision. The question will be
        whether a rendering court can bind a recognizing court to give its
        resolution of the issues before the recognizing court preclusive
        eﬀect. The answer to that question will be emphatically: No.
               It has been a time-honored principle of law that a rendering
        court cannot bind a recognizing court to give the issues it has
        resolved preclusive eﬀect. Whether a recognizing court gives a
        rendering court’s decisions preclusive eﬀect—say under principles
        of res judicata or collateral estoppel4—is exclusively the
        recognizing court’s job. Where, as here, Lumar will not have been
        a party in the rendering court and the issues the rendering court
        decides will not be the issues the recognizing court will be called
        on to decide, there can be no issue preclusion. It would be a
        violation of Lumar’s right to due process if the recognizing court
        precluded the issues before it on the basis of the rendering court’s
        supposed resolution of those issues.
               Consider res judicata. The doctrine would have no
        application because Lumar was not a party in the rendering court

        4 For a more comprehensive discussion of res judicata and issue preclusion,

        see my dissent in Graham v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 857 F.3d 1169, 1213–21
        (11th Cir. 2017) (en banc) (Tjoflat, J., dissenting).
USCA11 Case: 22-11079      Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2024     Page: 24 of 26

        8                      TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting               22-11079

        proceeding and it could not be held to have been in privity with the
        Corps in that proceeding because its interests and the Corps’s were
        adverse in that litigation.
               What about issue preclusion? There would be none because
        the issues litigated in the recognizing court proceeding would not
        have been present in the rendering court proceeding. Moreover,
        fundamental principles of due process would preclude the
        recognizing court from denying Lumar its day in court—its right
        to argue that the § 325.7 factors, especially the investment it made
        in reliance on its LOP, precluded the revocation of its LOP. “A
        person who was not a party to a suit generally has not had a ‘full
        and fair opportunity to litigate’ the claims and issues settled in that
        suit.” Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880, 892 (2008).
               Suppose the Center, on remand, moved the District Court
        for leave to join the Lumar in the instant litigation pursuant to
        Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19 as an indispensable party. See
        Fed. R. Civ. P. 19(a)(1)(A). Would that step aid the Center in
        pursuing its objective? The answer is No for two reasons. First,
        Lumar is not an indispensable party because none of the issues the
        District Court qua rendering court resolved would have any
        preclusive eﬀect in the District Court qua recognizing court.
        Second, even if the District Court here granted the Center leave to
        join Lumar as a defendant, the later District Court as the
        recognizing court in the action brought by the U.S. Attorney, would
        give this District Court’s decision no legal eﬀect.
USCA11 Case: 22-11079        Document: 42-1         Date Filed: 05/02/2024         Page: 25 of 26

        22-11079                  TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting                              9

               The idea that Lumar would forego its due process rights and
        abide by any decision the rendering court might make is far-
        fetched. No lawyer in his or her right mind would counsel Lumar
        to tear down the dock. To get the dock removed, the Corps would
        need to take a discretionary action called for by § 325.7 in a separate
        proceeding, which the LOP makes clear, and the majority opinion
        also acknowledges. See Maj. Op. at 13–14.
                                      IV. Conclusion
               Removal of Lumar’s dock remains the only relief that
        redresses the Center’s aesthetic injury here. First oﬀ, the Center’s
        concrete injury for standing purposes comes from their alleged
        “aesthetic injury from viewing the dock.” Therefore, Lumar could
        stop using the dock tomorrow, by choice or because a permit for
        its use is vacated or revoked, and the Center’s aesthetic injury
        would remain.5
                Next, vacatur or revocation of a permit for the dock’s
        existence under § 325.7 still would not provide any relief for that
        aesthetic injury. Since the dock has already been built and viewing
        it is the root of the Center’s injury, removal of the dock is the only
        way to redress that injury. The Center’s counsel admitted as much

        5 It is important to note that our case “‘hinge[s] on the independent choices of’

        third parties not before this court,” namely Lumar, and that distinguishes it
        from the procedural standing cases cited by the majority. See Food & Water
        Watch v. United States Dep’t of Agric., 1 F.4th 1112, 1116 (D.C. Cir. 2021)
        (quoting Ctr. for L. & Educ. v. Dep’t of Educ., 396 F.3d 1152, 1161 (D.C. Cir.
        2005)) (alteration in original).
USCA11 Case: 22-11079     Document: 42-1      Date Filed: 05/02/2024     Page: 26 of 26

        10                     TJOFLAT, J., Dissenting              22-11079

        at oral argument. The majority opinion also recognizes that in the
        instant case the District Court “can neither order the dock torn
        down nor order the Corps to initiate enforcement action to remove
        it.” Maj. Op. at 13–14.
               As the District Court and Corps have both stated, the nature
        of the permitting scheme is such that the Corps’s authority extends
        only to authorizing the construction and presence of the dock. To
        remove the dock—the only thing that can redress the Center’s
        concrete injury—the Corps would have to bring an enforcement
        action against Lumar under 33 C.F.R. § 326.5, and if Lumar failed
        to comply with the Corps’s decision, the Corps would have to sue
        Lumar for injunctive relief.
              When boiled down, given that Center’s goal is the dock’s
        removal, this case is nothing but a waste. It will result in a
        hypothetical district court decision, the sort of exercise Article III
        abhors. To me, there is nothing in the standing jurisprudence that
        would counsel a federal district court to engage in the exercise. I
        respectfully dissent.