ELR Citation: 50 ELR 20169
No(s). 19-35008 (9th Cir. Jul 9, 2020)

The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for BLM in a challenge to its 2017 offer and sale of oil and gas leases in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Environmental groups argued that BLM violated NEPA by failing to prepare an EA or EIS for the lease sale and failing to take a hard look at its impacts. BLM contended that it conducted the requisite NEPA analysis in a combined EIS and integrated activity plan (IAP) prepared for the reserve in 2012, and that any challenge to the adequacy of the 2012 EIS was subject to a 60-day statute of limitations. The district court concluded that the groups were not asserting a time-barred claim, but nevertheless held that BLM was not required to prepare a new EIS for the sale. On appeal, the groups argued that a broad-scale land use plan categorically could not provide the site-specific analysis required for the irretrievable commitment of resources represented by the lease sale. The appellate court disagreed, finding that the sale did require some sort of site-specific analysis, but that the instant dispute was whether the required analysis had already been prepared, and the fact that the 2012 EIS provided a programmatic-level analysis for the IAP did not preclude the legal possibility that it also sufficed for future lease sales. Rather, the proper inquiry was whether the initial EIS defined its scope as including the subsequent action, and the court concluded that it could reasonably construe the scope of the 2012 EIS to include the 2017 lease sale. It thus deferred to BLM's position and held that the agency complied with NEPA by preparing at least an initial EIS, any challenge to the adequacy of which is now time-barred. It therefore affirmed summary judgment for BLM.