Oregon Wild v. Kent Connaughton

MEMORANDUM

Plaintiffs appeal the district court’s order granting summary judgment for the United States Forest Service and Regional Forester Kent Connaughton (together, the Forest Service) on Plaintiffs’ National Environmental Policy Act claims challenging the Forest Service’s failure to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement for the Mount Ashland ski area expansion project. We affirm.

NEPA requires agencies to prepare environmental impact statements for federal actions “significantly affecting” the environment. 42 U.S.C. § 4332 (C). NEPA further requires agencies to prepare supplemental environmental impact statements when “[tjhere are significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns” that bear on “the proposed action or its impacts.” 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9 (c)(1). An agency’s refusal to prepare supplemental NEPA analysis is reviewed under the Administrative Procedure Act, Or. Nat. Desert Ass’n v. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 625 F.3d 1092, 1109 (9th Cir. 2010), and will be reversed only if the agency’s decision was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law,” 5 U.S.C. § 706 (2)(A). “Whether new…