Laub

This appeal presents the question of whether an action under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq., against various federal and state government defendants 1 challenging a proposed plan for managing the California Bay-Delta water resources is ripe for judicial review before site-specific action is taken. We hold that it is and reverse the district court. Because the record is not sufficient to ascertain wheth *1083 er the State Defendants’ participation in the water management program is sufficiently independent of federal control to escape the requirements of NEPA, we reverse the district court’s determination that certain land and water acquisitions undertaken pursuant to the program did not constitute a federal action, and remand with instructions to permit discovery on this question.

I

At issue in this case is the CALFED Bay-Delta program (CALFED program), a cooperative interagency effort of eighteen State and Federal agencies with management or regulatory responsibilities for California’s San Francisco Bay/ Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Bay-Delta). The Bay-Delta estuary is the largest estuary on the West Coast, including over…