Facts

In August 2013, the Rim Fire began and burned over several weeks. At the time, it was the third largest wildfire in California history, burning a quarter million acres and eliminating almost all vegetation in 40% of that area. Then, in 2014, the United States Forest Service adopted the Rim Fire Recovery Project to address the damage caused. Pursuant to federal law, the Forest Service issued an Environmental Impact Statement for the project.

After two years, the Rim Fire Recovery Project was roughly 70 percent complete, so the Forest Service shifted its focus to a new project, the 2016 Rim Fire Reforestation Project. Unlike the recovery project, which had been focused on salvage logging and fuel reduction, the reforestation project was directed at long-term restoration. The 2016 EIS concluded that it was not feasible to rely on the forest to regenerate entirely on its own, but it still allowed for utilizing natural regeneration and adopting adaptive management approaches as needed.

While the Forest Service was pursuing these projects, the California Department of Housing and Community Development applied for federal disaster relief from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In June 2016, HUD awarded $70 million to HCD. With those funds, HCD intended to fund the Community Watershed and Resilience Program. Briefly, the CWRP was a three-pronged plan that proposed a logging project, a biomass facility, and a community resilience center, all aimed at preventing future forest fires. More specifically, the logging project portion of the plan implemented the actions studied by the EISs conducted by the Forest Service, while the biomass facility project proposed a facility to reduce the need for open burning, reduce greenhouse gases, and provide a marketable end-use for removed biomass. After a feasibility study, however, HCD concluded that a large-scale biomass facility was unfeasible, so that portion of the project was changed from a biomass facility to a biomass fund.

In May 2017, HCD issued public notice seeking comments regarding adopting the Forest Service's EISs. Earth Island Institute submitted comments requesting HCD withdraw its proposal to accept relief funds from HUD and to adopt the EISs. Despite Earth Island's concerns about changed circumstances since the EISs were issued, they were adopted, and HCD requested released of the funds. After additional letters and objections from Earth Island, Greenpeace, Inc., Sequoia ForestKeeper, and James Hansen were sent and ignored, those parties filed suit against Kimberly Nash, HUD, Jason Kuiken, the United States Forest Service, Janice Waddell, and the California Department of Housing and Community Development on September 16, 2019.

PLAINTIFFS' CONTENTIONS: Plaintiffs contended that HUD and HCD failed to reevaluate, modify, or supplement the environmental reviews after new information and changed circumstances were presented; that HUD and HCD failed to analyze the combined impact of the logging project and biomass project; that the Forest Service failed to supplement its environmental analysis when new information was presented and circumstances had changes; that these failures violated HUD regulations, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Administrative Procedures Act; and that HUD and HCD improperly used funds in violation of the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act and the APA.

DEFENDANTS' CONTENTIONS: Defendants denied any wrongdoing or liability and all the plaintiffs' material allegations.

Result

The court granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment.