Salazar

MEMORANDUM DECISION RE CROSS MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON CLAIMS TWO AND THREE (DOCS. 54 & 60)

I. INTRODUCTION

Before the Court for decision are cross motions for summary judgment on two of Plaintiffs, Family Farm Alliance’s (“FFA”), three claims. The Second Claim alleges that Defendant, Kenneth Salazar, Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior, through the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) failed to timely respond to FFA’s appeal filed under the Information Quality Act (“IQA”), Pub. L. No. 106-554, § 515 (a) (2000), 44 U.S.C. § 3516 , and Guidelines issued by the Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) and FWS to implement the IQA. That appeal disputed FWS’s IQA compliance in connection with FWS’s issuance of a 2008 Biological Opinion under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”), addressing the impact of the coordinated operations of the federal Central Valley Project (“CVP”) and State Water Project (“SWP”) on the threatened Delta smelt (,hypomesus transpacificus) (“2008 Smelt BiOp”)- The Third Claim alleges that the peer review FWS commissioned to review the 2008 Smelt BiOp violated National Academy of Sciences (“NAS”) standards governing peer…