United States Ninth Circuit

In a Federal Land and Policy Management Act challenge to the exchange of certain private lands for several parcels of land surrounding a mine site and owned by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), summary judgment for plaintiffs is affirmed in part where: 1) the BLM should have taken the reasonably probable use of public lands for a landfill into consideration as part of the highest and best use analysis; and 2) as a result of its unreasonably narrow purpose and need statement, the BLM necessarily considered an unreasonably narrow range of alternatives. However, the order is reversed in part where: 1) the BLM's Record of Decision never became effective, and could not serve as the agency's final action; and 2) the record as a whole established that the BLM's interpretation of "full consideration," as evinced by the analyses in the environmental impact statement at issue, was permissible under 43 U.S.C. section 1716(a).

Appellate Information

• Argued 12/06/2007
• Decided 11/10/2009
• Published 11/10/2009

Judges

• Before:  HARRY PREGERSON, STEPHEN S. TROTT and RICHARD A. PAEZ, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Leonard J. Feldman, Heller Ehrman LLP, Seattle, WA, for defendant-appellants Kaiser Eagle Mountain, LLC and Mine Reclamation, LLC., Tamara N. Rountree, United States Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division, Washington, DC, for federal government defendant-appellants., Deborah Sivas and Noah Long, Stanford Environmental Law Clinic, Stanford, CA, for plaintiff-appellee National Parks Conservation Association., Stephan C. Volker, Law Offices of Stephan C. Volker, Oakland, CA, for plaintiffs-appellees Donna and Laurence Charpied.