REGGIE B. WALTON, United States District Judge.
The plaintiffs, Western Organization of Resource Councils and Friends of the Earth, filed this civil action against the defendants — the Department of the Interior ("Interior"), Sally Jewell in her capacity as Secretary of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management ("Bureau"), and Neil Kornze in his official capacity as Director of the Bureau (collectively, the "federal defendants") — "for declaratory and injunctive relief," concerning the federal defendants' alleged "failure ... to supplement its [1979] environmental impact analysis of the federal coal management program ... [and] assess the effect of the [p]rogram on the global climate, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act[,] [42 U.S.C. § 4321 (2012)] and the Administrative Procedure Act[,] [5 U.S.C. §§ 702, 706 (2012)]." Complaint ("Compl.") ¶ 1; see also id. ¶¶ 13-16. After the institution of this action, the Court permitted the State of Wyoming, the State of North Dakota, and the Wyoming Mining Association to intervene ("intervenor-defendants"). See July 15, 2015 Order ("Order") at 7-13, ECF No. 37; February 18, 2015 Minute Order. Currently pending before the Court are the Federal Defendant[s'] Corrected Motion to Dismiss ("Defs.' Mot."), the State of Wyoming's Motion to Dismiss ("Wyo.Mot."), the State of North Dakota's Motion to Dismiss ("N.D.Mot."), and the Wyoming Mining Association's Motion to Dismiss ("Wyo. Mining Ass'n Mot."). Upon careful consideration of the parties' submissions,
Congress enacted the National Environmental Policy Act ("NEPA") for the purpose of "promot[ing] efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere...." 42 U.S.C.
Id. § 4332(2)(C). This is commonly referred to as an Environmental Impact Statement ("EIS"). Oceana v. Bureau of Ocean Energy Mgmt., 37 F.Supp.3d 147, 151 (D.D.C.2014). The pertinent regulations implemented pursuant to the NEPA require the agency to prepare a programmatic EIS in certain circumstances. See 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25 (2012). And a supplement to the programmatic EIS is necessary when either "the agency makes substantial changes in the proposed action that are relevant to environmental concerns" or "there are significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its impacts." Id. § 1502.9(c)(1)(i)-(ii).
The following allegations are derived from the plaintiffs' complaint. The Bureau, an agency within Interior, implemented the federal coal management program (the "program") in 1979. Compl. ¶¶ 3, 48, 66, 190. Through the program, the Bureau has issued, and continues to issue, leases to private parties that "grant[] [them] the right to mine coal from federal lands." Id. ¶ 4; see also id. ¶¶ 47-50 (describing how leases are obtained); id. ¶¶ 67-68.
Before the Bureau implemented the program in 1979, it prepared a programmatic EIS for the program. Id. ¶ 13; see also id. ¶¶ 57-65 (describing certain details of the 1979 analysis). The 1979 programmatic EIS has "never [been] supplemented... with an evaluation of the ... program's effect on climate change." Id. ¶ 16. More specifically, the 1979 programmatic EIS has never been updated "to assess the effect[s] on climate change of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the ... program, or to consider policies that could reduce [those] effects." Id. ¶ 9; see also id. ¶ 189.
The plaintiffs are non-profit entities, whose "members live, work, recreate, and conduct other activities in areas adjacent to tracts where coal mining occurs pursuant to leases issued under the ... program," id. ¶ 25, as well as in "areas affected by emissions from electric power plants that burn coal mined under [these] leases," id. ¶ 26. They allege that their "members are affected by poor air quality associated with mining...." Id. ¶ 25. According to the plaintiffs, their members "have ... substantial interest[s] in [ensuring] they breathe air that will not injure their health," id. as well as using and enjoying these areas for various public purposes, which they cannot do because of the alleged harm from the "combustion of coal," id. ¶¶ 25-26. In light of these purported injuries, resulting from the federal defendants' failure to supplement its 1979 environmental analysis, which the plaintiffs claim is in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act ("APA"), 5 U.S.C. § 706(1), (2)(A) (2012), Compl. ¶¶ 192, 195-97, the plaintiffs filed suit against the federal defendants, seeking, inter alia, to compel them to supplement the 1979 analysis, id. ¶¶ 1, 19.
A complaint must contain "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Fed. R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2). So to survive a motion to dismiss for "failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted," Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6), the complaint "must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to `state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face,'" Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)). The "claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Id. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955); see also Kowal v. MCI Commc'ns Corp., 16 F.3d 1271, 1276 (D.C.Cir.1994) (plaintiff is entitled to "the benefit of all inferences that can be derived from the facts alleged"). Although the Court must accept the facts pleaded as true, legal allegations devoid of factual support are not entitled to this assumption. See, e.g., Kowal, 16 F.3d at 1276. Along with the allegations made within the four corners of the complaint, the court can consider "any documents either attached to or incorporated in the complaint and matters of which [it] may take judicial notice." EEOC v. St. Francis Xavier Parochial Sch., 117 F.3d 621, 624 (D.C.Cir.1997).
The Administrative Procedure Act ("APA") "establishes a cause of action for those `suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action.'" Koretoff v. Vilsack, 614 F.3d 532, 536 (D.C.Cir.2010) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 702). The APA directs the court to "compel agency action unlawfully withheld." 5 U.S.C. § 706(1). A claim under the "unlawfully withheld" provision of 5 U.S.C. § 706(1) can proceed only if it contends that the "agency failed to take a discrete agency action that it is required to take." Norton v. S. Utah Wilderness All., 542 U.S. 55, 64, 124 S.Ct. 2373, 159 L.Ed.2d 137 (2004). The APA also directs courts to "hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law." 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). In making this inquiry under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2), a reviewing court "must consider whether the [agency's] decision was based on a consideration of the relevant factors and whether there has been a clear error of judgment." Marsh v. Or. Nat. Res. Council, 490 U.S. 360, 378, 109 S.Ct. 1851, 104 L.Ed.2d 377 (1989) (internal quotation marks omitted).
The plaintiffs argue that the federal defendants have neglected their obligation to supplement the 1979 EIS for the federal coal management program
The pertinent regulation requires the federal defendants to supplement an EIS only where the agency plans on making "substantial changes [to] the proposed action that are relevant to environmental concerns" or where "there are significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its impacts." 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(c)(1)(i)-(ii) (emphasis added). There is no underlying "proposed action" in this case to trigger an obligation to supplement the 1979 EIS because the federal coal management program has been implemented. See Compl. ¶¶ 47-50, 66, 68, 80, 190. Leasing decisions are made pursuant to a pre-approved and EIS-supported program. And there is no allegation that the federal defendants have issued, and continue to issue, leases in a manner other than what was contemplated under the program implemented in 1979 or that they have proposed to amend the leasing program since 1979.
The Court's conclusion is in accord with precedent. In Norton, the respondents filed suit against the petitioners in district court, alleging that the petitioners "fail[ed] to act to protect public lands in Utah from damage caused by [off-road vehicle] use." 542 U.S. at 60, 124 S.Ct. 2373. The petitioners protected these public lands in Utah through, inter alia, a programmatic "land use plan," which was "adopted after notice and comment" and indicated how particular land can be used. Id. at 59-60, 124 S.Ct. 2373. One claim advanced by the respondents in Norton was that the petitioners were required to "undertake supplemental environmental analyses for areas [in Utah,] in which [off-road vehicle] use had increased." Id. at 61, 124 S.Ct. 2373. In overruling the Tenth Circuit's reversal of the district court's dismissal of this claim, the Supreme Court relied on the principle that "supplementation is necessary
Likewise, the possibility of major federal action remaining here was foreclosed after the federal coal management program was implemented in 1979 and that same program continues to govern the leases today. Compl. ¶¶ 47-50, 66, 68, 80, 190. Once the federal coal management program went into effect, the proposed federal action came to an end. That the federal defendants continue to issue leases in a manner consistent with the federal coal management program introduced in 1979, does not constitute an "ongoing `major [f]ederal action,'" Norton, 542 U.S. at 73, 124 S.Ct. 2373, necessitating a supplemental EIS, cf. Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Salazar, 706 F.3d 1085, 1095 (9th Cir.2013) ("additional, independent actions ... did not trigger [statutory] supplementation of the... environmental analysis" where those actions did not "affect[] the validity or completeness" of the plan for which the environmental analysis was conducted); Greater Yellowstone, 572 F.3d at 1124 (recognizing that there is no remaining major federal action "merely because an agency retains a degree of discretion in a project"); Yount v. Salazar, No. 11-C-8171-PCT-DGC, 2013 WL 2370619, at *1, *2 (D.Ariz. May 29, 2013) (where the Secretary of Interior decided "to withdraw from mineral development over one million acres of public lands in the Grand Canyon Watershed in Northern Arizona," and where assuming that the Secretary of Interior may have had to evaluate claims from "mining claimants in the withdrawal area[,] seek[ing] mineral exams to demonstrate that their claims constitute preexisting rights exempt from the withdrawal," there was no remaining federal action because the exams "were not required to effectuate the withdrawal" and had "no bearing on the withdrawal decision itself"); Audubon Naturalist Soc'y of the Cent. Atl. States, Inc. v. U.S. Dep't of Transp., 524 F.Supp.2d 642, 710 (D.Md.2007) (no major federal action remained where defendants had already made "critical decision" to move forward with highway construction project, despite the fact that "approval of [certain] ... design-build contracts" was "still pending"); Envtl. Prot. Info. Ctr. v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., No. 04-CV-4647-CRB, 2005 WL 3021939, at *5, *6 (N.D.Cal. Nov. 10, 2005) (no major federal action remaining where government had "adaptive management" role i.e., "ongoing monitoring" responsibilities pursuant to a conservation plan).
Finally, the Court finds the plaintiffs' reliance on Marsh, 490 U.S. at 371-72, 109 S.Ct. 1851, Friends of the Clearwater v. Dombeck, 222 F.3d 552 (9th Cir.2000), and Nat'l Wildlife Fed'n v. Appalachian Reg'l Comm'n, 677 F.2d 883 (D.C.Cir.1981), unavailing. Pls.' Opp'n at 5-9. None of these cases present analogous facts where, as here, the government has implemented an
For the foregoing reasons, the Court grants the federal defendants' motion to dismiss on the ground that they have no duty to supplement the 1979 programmatic EIS for the federal coal management program because there is no remaining or ongoing major federal action that confers upon them a duty to do so.