350 Montana v. Haaland

The federal district court for the District of Montana vacated the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement’s (OSMRE’s) approval of the expansion of an underground coal mine in central Montana. The district court issued its order on remand from the Ninth Circuit, which held in April 2022 that OSMRE violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by failing to provide a “convincing statement of reasons” why the expansion’s impact on greenhouse gas emissions would be insignificant. In concluding that the federal defendants and the coal mine operator did not overcome the presumption in favor of vacatur and the equities that favor that remedy, the court first found that the NEPA violations were central to the environmental assessment and that OSMRE’s errors were therefore “sufficiently serious to warrant vacatur.” The court also stated that OSMRE’s subsequent independent decision to prepare an EIS “inherently demonstrates the seriousness of the agency’s errors.” The court then concluded that leaving the approval in place would potentially be more disruptive than vacatur. The court noted that the “disruptive consequences” of vacatur—which the coal mine operator alleged would include environmental (including increased greenhouse gas emissions), economic, and community impacts—were the product of reliance on approvals granted pursuant to invalid environmental analyses and that the “full impacts” of the expansion would not be known until the EIS was completed.

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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied petitions for rehearing and rehearing en banc of its April 2022 decision holding that federal defendants’ consideration of the greenhouse gas emissions impacts of a Montana coal mine expansion violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The Ninth Circuit issued an amended opinion that clarified the district court’s tasks on remand (whether to order an environmental impact statement (EIS) or to remand to the agency for a determination of whether to prepare a new environmental assessment or an EIS, and whether to vacate the agency approval of the expansion).

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