Rohnert Park Citizens to Enforce CEQA v. United States Department of Transportation

MEMORANDUM

Plaintiff-Appellant Rohnert Park Citizens To Enforce CEQA (“Rohnert Park Citizens”) appeals the district court’s entry of summary judgment in favor of the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration on Roh-nert Park Citizens’s claim that the federal agencies violated the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) when they found that a northern California highway interchange expansion project would have no significant impact on the human environment. Rohnert Park Citizens argues that the environmental assessment for the highway project violated 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25 (c)(3) by failing to adequately consider the cumulative impact on traffic of the highway project in tandem with an unrelated casino construction project nearby.

We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo and the environmental assessment’s finding of no significant impact under the Administrative Procedure Act’s arbitrary and capricious standard. See, e.g., Native Ecosystems Council v. Dombeck, 304 F.3d 886, 891-92 (9th Cir.2002). We hold that given the lack of information about the casino project’s likely effects on traffic, the environmental assessment’s…