Justia Environmental Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs challenge the BLM's approval of the Mt. Hope Project, a proposed molybdenum mining operation near Eureka, Nevada. Plaintiffs argue that the BLM’s review of the Project under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq., was inadequate and that the approval of the Project violated the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA), 43 U.S.C. 1732(b), and the laws governing lands withdrawn under the executive order known as Public Water Reserve No. 107 (PWR 107). The court agreed with plaintiffs' assertion that the BLM’s selection of baseline levels of certain air pollutants was unreasonable and that the BLM’s analysis of cumulative impacts was deficient. The court declined to address plaintiffs' PWR 107 claims because the BLM should be given an opportunity to fix the errors in its analysis of the Project under NEPA before challenges to the approval of the Project itself are entertained, and the proper analysis of the PWR 107 claim turns in large part on whether four springs in the area of the Project are “covered” by PWR 107, but the BLM’s position on that question is unclear. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded with instructions to vacate the record of decision and remand to the BLM. View "Great Basin Resource Watch v. BLM" on Justia Law

Appellants appeal the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Appellees on Appellants' claims under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321. Appellants argue that Appellees' environment impact analysis for a new underground light rail line project in downtown Los Angeles was inadequate. As a preliminary matter, the court declined to take judicial notice of the three documents on Metro’s website. The court declined to consider Japanese Village’s argument that the mitigation monitoring and report plan (MMRP) was not properly attached to the Record of Decision (ROD). The court rejected Japanese Village's challenges to the adequacy of the mitigation plan included in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) regarding construction-related noise and vibration; operational noise and vibration; subsidence; and parking. The court also rejected Bonaventure's claims that Appellees (1) failed to analyze Closed-Face TBM construction as a reasonable alternative tunneling method for the Lower Flower portion of the Project in the FEIS; (2) failed to adequately analyze certain impacts and impermissibly deferred certain mitigation analyses in the FEIS; and (3) failed to prepare a Supplemental EIS to analyze nighttime construction. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Japanese Village, LLC v. FTA" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit challenging the environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Regional Plan Update (RPU) of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA). The RPU generally restricts future development to areas that are already developed, and sets forth the amount of further development that will be permitted in those areas in the future. As a preliminary matter, the court held that plaintiffs have standing to assert claims that are ripe. On the merits, the court concluded that the district court properly entered summary judgment in favor of TRPA where the final EIS for the RPU adequately addressed localized impacts on soil conservation and water quality. Therefore, the EIS’s analysis of the effects of concentrating development was not arbitrary or capricious, and did not violate Regional Planning Compact article VII(a)(2)(A) by failing to address significant environmental impacts of the RPU. The court also held that TRPA reasonably concluded that, in light of anticipated improvements in best management practices (BMP) maintenance, the development permitted in the RPU would have less than a significant effect on water quality. Thus, the TRPA’s assumptions regarding BMPs were supported by substantial evidence and are entitled to deference. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment, including the district court's imposition of costs and denial of reimbursement to plaintiffs. Plaintiffs’ request for judicial notice was denied as moot. View "Sierra Club v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the County Defendants in 2008, alleging that the County Defendants were discharging polluted stormwater in violation of the terms of their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, issued pursuant to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (the Clean Water Act), 33 U.S.C.1251 et seq. The court held in 2013 that as a matter of law, the County Defendants had violated their permit. In 2012, during the pendency of appellate proceedings, the County Defendants sought and received a new NPDES permit from the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (the Regional Board), which now governs the County Defendants’ stormwater discharges. In January 2015, the County Defendants filed a motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ entire lawsuit on mootness grounds, arguing that the 2012 Permit supplanted the 2001 Permit and therefore relief was not available to plaintiffs. Plaintiffs filed an interlocutory appeal from the district court's dismissal of their claims for injunctive relief. The court held that it has jurisdiction over the appeal under 28 U.S.C. 1292(a)(1). The court also held that plaintiffs' injunctive claims are not moot because the County Defendants are still subject to receiving water limitations, which are substantially the same as the limitations in the 2001 Permit. The County Defendants have not met their burden of making it “absolutely clear” that no violation will recur in the future. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment. View "NRDC V. County of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

The NMFS used climate projections to determine that the loss of sea ice over shallow waters in the Arctic would leave the Pacific bearded seal subspecies endangered by the year 2095. Plaintiffs filed separate suits challenging the NMFS's listing decision regarding the Okhotsk and Beringia distinct population segments (DPS) of the Pacific bearded seal subspecies under the Endangered Species Act's (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1540(g), citizen suit provision, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 706. The district court denied relief with respect to the Okhotsk DPS for lack of Article III standing, but granted summary judgment to plaintiffs on their challenge to NMFS’s decision to list the Beringia DPS as a threatened species. The district court vacated the Listing Rule. The court held that, in light of the robustness of NMFS’s rulemaking process, as well as the court's highly deferential standard of review, NMFS’s final rule listing the Beringia DPS as threatened was not arbitrary or capricious, and its listing decision was supported by substantial evidence. Finally, the court concluded that NMFS clearly fulfilled its procedural and substantive obligations under Section 4(i) of the ESA to provide Alaska with a written justification. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment. View "Alaska Oil & Gas Ass'n v. Pritzker" on Justia Law

United Cook filed suit challenging Amendment 12, which removed three historic net fishing areas from the Salmon fishery management plan (FMP), and its implementing regulations as contrary to the Magnuson-Stevens Act's requirement that a Council prepare an FMP “for each fishery under its authority that requires conservation and management,” 16 U.S.C. 1852(h)(1). United Cook also alleged that Amendment 12 was arbitrary and capricious and contrary to the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. 4332(2)(C). At issue on appeal is whether NMFS can exempt a fishery under its authority that requires conservation and management from an FMP because the agency is content with State management. The court concluded that the Magnuson-Stevens Act unambiguously requires a Council to create an FMP for each fishery under its authority that requires conservation and management. The Act allows delegation to a state under an FMP, but does not excuse the obligation to adopt an FMP when a Council opts for state management. Therefore, the court concluded that Amendment 12 is contrary to law to the extent it removes Cook Inlet from the FMP. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with instructions that judgment be entered in favor of United Cook. View "United Cook Inlet Drift Ass'n. V. NMFS" on Justia Law

Petitioners seek review of the EPA's rule approving Arizona’s Five Percent Plan for airborne particulate matter around Maricopa County. The court upheld the EPA’s determination that the control measures in Arizona’s Five Percent Plan did not need to be updated, and that the 135 exceedances were exceptional events that are excluded from consideration under the EPA’s regulation and guidance documents. The court concluded, however, that it will not defer to the EPA’s interpretation of the contingency measures requirement because, under the plain language of 42 U.S.C. 7502(c)(9), contingency measures are measures that will be taken in the future, not measures that have already been implemented. Accordingly, the court granted in part and denied in part the petition for review. View "Bahr v. EPA" on Justia Law

Helping Hand and the Center petition for review of the EPA's final decision granting Sierra Pacific a prevent of significant deterioration (PSD) permit for construction of a new biomass-burning power plant at its lumber mill in California. Because EPA properly took the requisite hard look at Sierra Pacific’s proposed design and the key purpose of burning its own biomass waste, the court held that EPA reasonably concluded that consideration of solar or increased natural gas would disrupt that purpose and redefine the source. Therefore, the EPA did not act arbitrarily or capriciously and Helping Hand’s petition is denied. Because EPA was largely relying on its own guidance, acting at the frontiers of science, the court deferred to the agency’s determination regarding the supplemental greenhouse best available control technology (BACT) analysis. In this case, Sierra Pacific’s application went through an extensive process to issue a reasoned PSD permit for its new biomass burning boiler. EPA properly defined the project and rejected control technologies that redefined the project with thoughtful and reasonable explanations. The Bioenergy BACT Guidance EPA applied to the greenhouse gas emissions from Sierra Pacific’s new facility is rational and thoroughly consistent with EPA’s prior guidance. View "Helping Hand Tools v. EPA" on Justia Law

In 2013, BLM adopted a new Recreation Area Management Plan (RAMP) where the 26,098-acre North Algodones Dunes Wilderness tract would remain closed to off-road vehicles, as would 9,261 acres of milkvetch critical habitat. BLM additionally prepared an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) analyzing the 2013 RAMP, and consulted with the Service pursuant to section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq. As a result, the Service issued a new Biological Opinion finding that the 2013 RAMP was not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the milkvetch or desert tortoise. The Center brought challenges under the ESA; the Clean Air Act (CAA), 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.; the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), 43 U.S.C. 1701–1785; the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.; and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 706 et seq. The district court granted summary judgment for BLM on all but one issue. The court concluded that the ESA does not require Biological Opinions to contain Incidental Take Statements for threatened plants. Therefore, the court need not consider separately the Services' interpretation of the statute. The court rejected the Center's remaining claims, concluding that the Center has failed to demonstrate that BLM’s emissions analysis was arbitrary and capricious. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Center for Bio. Diversity v. BLM" on Justia Law

Glacier challenges the fee imposed on it by the NMFS pursuant to the agency’s cost recovery program developed under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, 16 U.S.C. 1853(a). The final regulations required members of a catcher-processor coop to pay a percentage of the revenue earned by each vessel as a fee to NMFS. The court concluded that, because the catcher-processor coop permit is a limited access privilege, and Glacier can reasonably be said to be a “holder” of that permit, NMFS had the authority to collect a fee from the individual members of the coop, including Glacier. Therefore, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment to NMFS on this issue. Because NMFS’s regulations include the Council’s definition of incremental costs as net costs with and without the trawl rationalization program, NMFS complied with section 1853a(e), and the court rejected Glacier’s argument to the contrary. Finally, the court concluded that NMFS’s calculation of the 2014 cost recovery fee of the catcher-processor sector was inconsistent with NMFS’s own regulations. Therefore, the court reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the extent it upheld NMFS’s fee calculation and remanded to the agency to re-determine that fee in accordance with its regulations. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded in part. View "Glacier Fish Co. v. Pritzker" on Justia Law