ELR Citation: 53 ELR 20128
No(s). CV-21-01126-PHX-SRB (D. Ariz. Aug 9, 2023) (Bolton, J.)

A district court granted in part and denied in part environmental groups' motion for summary judgment in a challenge to BLM's 2020 decision to allow grazing in the Sonoran Desert National Monument. The groups argued the Bureau's amended resource management plan (RMP) violated FLPMA and the National Landscape Conservation System Act because it failed to comply with President Clinton's 2001 proclamation creating the monument; violated the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) by failing to follow procedural requirements; and violated NEPA by issuing a FONSI that "unreasonably dismissed" criteria that should have led the Bureau to produce an EIS, failing to consider an adequate range of alternatives, and failing to take a "hard look" at environmental effects. The court concluded the EA was inadequate because BLM unreasonably relied on an assumption that cattle would not stray more than 2 miles from a water source, and failed to consider certain environmental effects; it declined to determine whether the Bureau should have prepared an EIS. It further concluded the FLPMA claim was not ripe because the amended RMP was a planning level decision with no imminent impact on monument objects, and that BLM abided by the NHPA given the stage of agency decisionmaking and the Bureau's ongoing tribal consultation. It granted in part and denied in part summary judgment for the groups.