Supreme Court Docket Report - March 18, 2013

On March 18, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in one case of interest to the business community:

National Environmental Policy Act—Scope of Government's Obligations—Standing and Ripeness

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 ("NEPA"), 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq., requires federal agencies to prepare a detailed environmental-impact statement informing other agencies and the public about the reasonably foreseeable environmental consequences of any "major Federal action[] significantly affecting the quality of the human environment." 42 U.S.C.§ 4332(2)(C). In Summers v. Earth Island Institute, 555 U.S. 488, 490-97 (2009), the Supreme Court held that environmental organizations lack Article III standing to challenge Forest Service regulations excluding certain activities from review under NEPA, unless there is "a live dispute over a concrete application of those regulations." The Court ruled that an affidavit from an environmental organization's member stating an intention to visit national parks in the future did not demonstrate a live dispute. Id. at 495.

Today, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in United States Forest Service v. Pacific Rivers Council, No. 12-623, to decide: (1) whether Pacific Rivers Council has Article III standing to challenge Forest Service amendments to plans governing the management of several Sierra Nevada forests; (2) whether PRC's challenge to the amendments is ripe; and (3) whether the Forest Service has a duty under NEPA to perform environmental-impact studies when it makes broad (as opposed to site-specific) amendments to plans for managing national forests.

To address fire risks in the forests of the Sierra Nevada, the Forest Service issued significant, programmatic amendments to its management plans for those areas, and corresponding environmental-impact statements, in 2001 and 2004. Dissatisfied with the Forest Service's analysis of the effects of the 2004 amendments on fish and amphibian species, PRC challenged the adequacy of the agency's supplemental environmental-impact statement under NEPA and the Administrative Procedure Act. The district court granted summary judgment to the Forest Service, holding that the agency's analysis was not arbitrary or capricious.

A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed in part and remanded. The court determined that PRC has Article III standing based on allegations that a member of the organization frequently hikes and climbs in the Sierra Nevada, that some...