Soda Mountain Wilderness Council v. United States Bureau of Land Management

FILED

NOT FOR PUBLICATION APR 20 2015

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

SODA MOUNTAIN WILDERNESS No. 13-35438 COUNCIL; et al., D.C. No. 1:12-cv-00434-CL Plaintiffs - Appellants,

v. MEMORANDUM*

UNITED STATES BUREAU OF LAND

MANAGEMENT,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Oregon Owen M. Panner, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted March 2, 2015 Portland Oregon

Before: PAEZ and IKUTA, Circuit Judges and TIGAR,** District Judge.

Soda Mountain Wilderness Council and several other environmental

organizations (collectively “Soda Mountain”) appeal the district court’s grant of

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3. ** The Honorable Jon S. Tigar, District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, sitting by designation. summary judgment in favor of the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”). Soda

Mountain challenges the…

MEMORANDUM **

Soda Mountain Wilderness Council and several other environmental organizations (collectively “Soda Mountain”) appeal the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”). Soda Mountain challenges the validity of the BLM’s Environmental Assessment (“EA”), and Finding of No Significant Impact (“FONSI”), for the proposed Sampson Cove Forest Management Project (the “Project”). Soda Mountain alleges that the BLM committed several violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321-4370 (d), and the Federal Land Policy Management Act (“FLPMA”), 43 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm in part and reverse in part.

1. We review de novo a district court’s ruling on cross motions for summary judgment. Guatay Christian Fellowship v. Cnty. of San Diego, 670 F.3d 957, 970 (9th Cir.2011). Judicial review of an agency’s compliance with NEPA and FLPMA is governed by the Administrative Procedures Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 701-06 ; Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Ctr. v. Boody, 468 F.3d 549, 554 (9th Cir.2006). Agency decisions may be set aside only if they are “arbitrary,…

concurring in part, dissenting in part:

Because the Cottonwood project was not a “reasonably foreseeable” future action at the time the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) prepared the Sampson Cove Project environmental analysis (EA), see 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7 ,1 dissent from the majority’s ruling on that issue.

We do not “require the government to do the impractical.” Envtl. Protection Info. Ctr. (EPIC) v. U.S. Forest Serv., 451 F.3d 1005, 1014 (9th Cir.2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). If an agency lacks enough information about the parameters of a possible future project to “permit meaningful consideration,” it need not address the project in the EA. Id.

Here, the majority’s claim that the BLM had enough information about the Cottonwood project rests on two slim reeds that do not bear the weight placed on them. The majority says “an interdisciplinary team” made a decision about the Cottonwood project “[s]ix months before the BLM issued the Project’s EA.” Maj. at 672. But the record shows only an internal agenda entitled “Ashland RA ID Team Meeting” dated January 27, 2010, which contains one cryptic sentence: “In order to spread the due dates out more for the 2011 timber…