Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Summary

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California reviews challenges to federal permitting of the Stonegate Development Project in Chico, California. The court holds that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Biological Opinion was arbitrary and capricious in failing to analyze climate-change impacts on vernal-pool species, while rejecting challenges concerning the meadowfoam population baseline and certain mitigation measures. The case also involves claims under the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, and Administrative Procedure Act.

Holdings

1. The Biological Opinion was arbitrary and capricious because it failed to meaningfully address climate change and its effects on ESA-listed vernal-pool species. General references to hydrologic changes and habitat loss, together with citations to documents discussing climate change, did not substitute for analysis or express incorporation of those climate-related conclusions.
2. The Biological Opinion was arbitrary and capricious because the agency failed to analyze potential effects on the giant garter snake after relying on the erroneous assumption that there had been no sightings of the species within five miles of the project.
3. The agency's limited reliance on a 2002 draft biological opinion concerning a different development project did not make the current Biological Opinion arbitrary and capricious.
4. The 2005 Recovery Plan was nonbinding, and the agency's reliance on recovery-plan mitigation measures did not violate the ESA or constitute arbitrary and capricious action merely because the specific measures were not enforceable as obligations under the Recovery Plan.
5. The Corps did not violate the Clean Water Act by selecting Alternative 5 rather than Alternative 1 or the Bruce Road Alternative because the administrative record supported rejecting those alternatives as economically infeasible or incapable of meeting the project's purposes.
6. The Corps did not violate NEPA by preparing an environmental assessment rather than an environmental impact statement on the record before the court.
7. The court accepted plaintiffs' extra-record declaration and attached studies solely to evaluate whether the agency considered all relevant factors and the best available contemporary scientific information regarding climate change, but declined to consider the defendants' substantive rebuttal declaration.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the Fish and Wildlife Service's no-jeopardy Biological Opinion was arbitrary and capricious because it failed to analyze climate change's effects on ESA-listed vernal-pool species.
2. Whether the Biological Opinion was arbitrary and capricious because the agency failed to assess potential effects on the ESA-listed giant garter snake based on an erroneous factual assumption that no snake had been observed within five miles of the project.
3. Whether the agency acted arbitrarily and capriciously by relying on a draft biological opinion concerning a different project and by departing from that draft's conclusions regarding meadowfoam.
4. Whether the agency unlawfully relied on nonbinding recovery-plan mitigation measures.
5. Whether the Corps violated the Clean Water Act by failing to select the least environmentally damaging practicable alternative.
6. Whether the Corps violated NEPA by preparing an environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact rather than an environmental impact statement.
7. Whether the court should consider plaintiffs' extra-record declaration and scientific studies for the limited purpose of assessing whether the agency considered all relevant factors.

Disposition

other