California v. U.S. Bureau of Land Management

On January 24, 2018, eight environmental groups filed an action in the federal district court for the Northern District of California challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) decision to repeal 2015 regulations that govern hydraulic fracturing on federal and tribal lands. The environmental groups’ complaint alleged that BLM’s repeal of the regulations violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and several federal land management statutes (Mineral Leasing Act, Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and Indian Mineral Leasing Act).

The federal district court for the Northern District of California ruled that the Trump administration’s repeal of a rule promulgated by the Obama administration in 2015 regulating hydraulic fracturing on federal and tribal lands did not violate the Administrative Procedure Act, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), or the Endangered Species Act (ESA). As a threshold matter, the court found that California had standing for all its claims and that Citizen Group Plaintiffs had standing for claims under the ESA and NEPA but not under the APA. On the merits, the court concluded that the change in policy was not arbitrary and capricious under the APA, finding that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) “reasoned explanation” of the change “did enough to clear the low bar of arbitrary and capricious review.” The court was not persuaded by California’s critiques of the reversal, which included two main arguments: that BLM’s determination that the 2015 rule was duplicative of state and tribal regulation was negated by BLM’s earlier conclusions and that BLM ignored forgone benefits of the Obama-era rule in its cost-benefit analysis. The court declined to address the issue of whether BLM had authority to issue the 2015 rule. The court also agreed with the defendants that NEPA did not apply since the 2015 rule was never in effect and the “environmental status quo” therefore was not altered. (California’s NEPA claim was based in part on the defendants’ failure to consider potential significant adverse environmental impacts, including climate change harms.) Regarding the ESA, the court found that there was a “rational connection” between BLM’s “final position” that the repeal would have no effect on threatened species on BLM lands and the facts in the record.