By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//March 7, 2012//
United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit
Civil
Environmental Law — EIS
The National Environmental Policy Act does not require an agency to generate paperwork bearing no meaningful effect on the substance of pending proposals.
“NEPA ‘is our basic national charter for protection of the environment.’ 40 C.F.R. § 1500.1(a). The statute emphasizes the importance of coherent and comprehensive up-front environmental analysis to ensure informed decisionmaking and prevent an agency from ‘act[ing] on incomplete information, only to regret its decision after it is too late to correct.’ Marsh, 490 U.S. at 371. NEPA’s purpose, however, ‘is not to generate paperwork—even excellent paperwork—but to foster excellent action.’ 40 C.F.R. § 1500.1(c). Because the Forest Service could not meaningfully discuss the Fishel project when the draft statements for the McCaslin and Northwest Howell projects were issued, analysis of the cumulative impacts of all three projects likely would be, and indeed was, discussed in the Fishel project’s EIS, and nothing in the record suggests that the Fishel project significantly altered the environmental landscape presented in those draft statements, the plaintiffs’ plea amounts to a request that the agency generate more paperwork to further (and somewhat retroactively) justify actions that it proposed, analyzed, and adopted in substantial compliance with NEPA. The statute, however, is intended to foster excellent and environmentally conscious action, not prevent it. We believe that our holding aligns with the essential purpose of NEPA.”
Affirmed.
10-1322 & 10-1346 Habitat Education Center, Inc., v. USFS
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Adelman, J., Williams, J.