Court Opinion

ID: 9466974
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:34:44.21927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:05.042777
License: Public Domain

POOLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the judgment affirming the district court’s denial of appellants’ motion *919for a preliminary injunction, but on a somewhat different basis.
With respect to their challenge to the construction moratorium, I would affirm on the ground that the district court correctly concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over that challenge,1 substantially for the reasons stated in that court’s opinion. The “citizen suit” to compel performance of the EPA’s purportedly nondiscretionary duty to promulgate a SIP for California, for which jurisdiction was asserted under 42 U.S.C. § 7604, was merely incidental to the challenge to the construction ban, at least at this stage of the proceedings. Whether the ban was imposed by the interpretive rule or the EPA telegram to the state legislators, appellants were seeking review of either the promulgation of a portion of an implementation plan or other “final action” of the Administrator within the meaning of 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1), as broadly defined in Harrison v. PPG Industries, Inc., - U.S. -, 100 S.Ct. 1889, 64 L.Ed.2d 525 (1980). Jurisdiction over this challenge, therefore, was exclusively in the court of appeals under thát section and 42 U.S.C. § 7607(e).
As to the threatened funding cutoffs, the district court’s conclusion that appellants had virtually no chance of succeeding on the merits was neither an abuse of discretion nor based upon erroneous legal premises. I would therefore also affirm the denial of preliminary injunctive relief on that ground. See Miss Universe, Inc. v. Flesher, 605 F.2d 1130, 1132-33 & n. 5 (9th Cir. 1979); Benda v. Grand Lodge, etc., 584 F.2d 308, 315 (9th Cir. 1978), cert. dismissed, 441 U.S. 937, 99 S.Ct. 2065, 60 L.Ed.2d 667 (1979).

. I concur, instead of joining with the majority, because it seems to me that the threshold question is not whether there was a likelihood of jurisdiction to hear this challenge, but whether the district court did or did not have such jurisdiction. Subject matter jurisdiction is a question of law, not a matter of discretion. If the district court did have jurisdiction, its denial of the preliminary injunction for lack of jurisdiction would have constituted an erroneous legal premise, and that would be a basis for reversal. William Inglis & Sons Baking Co. v. ITT Continental Baking Co., Inc., 526 F.2d 86, 88 (9th Cir. 1975); Douglas v. Beneficial Finance Co., 469 F.2d 453, 454 (9th Cir. 1972).