Natural Resources Defense Council v. Bernhardt

In an unpublished decision, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of environmental organizations’ claim that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management failed to take a hard look at the potential greenhouse gas emissions from lease sales in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and failed to adequately analyze alternatives. The Ninth Circuit rejected the organizations’ argument that the 2012 environmental impact statement (EIS) could not serve as National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis for the lease sales at issue because it did not assess climate change impacts. As in the other case, the Ninth Circuit further concluded that any hard look challenge to the 2012 EIS was time-barred; the court also found that the organizations failed to preserve any NEPA supplementation claim.