Thomas v. Peterson
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
753 F.2d 754 (1985)
Harold Thomas and other landowners, ranchers, and conservation groups (plaintiffs) sued Forest Service Chief R. Max Peterson (defendant) to enjoin a gravel road built to harvest and sell timber in Idaho's Nez Perce National Forest, arguing the Forest Service approved the road and sales without preparing an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) required by NEPA and without considering the project's impact on the Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Forest Service's environmental assessment addressed only the road's own impacts, not the timber sales the road was built to serve, even though the Fish and Wildlife Service and EPA had flagged cumulatively significant impacts from the road and sales together; the Forest Service also never prepared the biological assessment despite knowing the wolf might be present in the area. The district court granted the Forest Service summary judgment, and the plaintiffs appealed.
(1) Whether, prior to initiating proposed federal action, the National Environmental Policy Act requires a federal agency to prepare a single Environmental Impact Statement for connected and cumulative actions to determine whether the action will significantly affect the quality of the human environment. (2) Whether a plaintiff's burden in establishing a procedural violation of the Endangered Species Act is to show that the circumstances triggering the procedural requirement exist and that the required procedures have not been followed.