Alaska v. Andrus

580 F.2d 465 (1978)

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Alaska v. Andrus

United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
580 F.2d 465 (1978)

  • Written by Tanya Munson, JD

Facts

In 1974, President Nixon directed the Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI) to increase acreage leased on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Once the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) completed an environmental study of risks associated with OCS development in the area, the DOI published a draft environmental-impact statement (EIS) of the proposed increase in OCS leasing of the Alaskan OCS. The DOI submitted the EIS to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for review. The EPA determined that the lease sale should be delayed to allow for the completion of further environmental studies. The issue was referred to the CEQ, and the CEQ agreed with the EPA and concluded that the lease sale should be delayed. The secretary of the DOI decided to proceed with the leasing as planned because the hazards of development were already known, and further studies would not change that fundamental knowledge. The secretary of the DOI determined that the benefit of proceeding with the lease sales outweighed the cost of waiting for additional research. The state of Alaska (plaintiff) challenged the legality of the lease sale in district court and sought to have it set aside because they claimed that the DOI’s EIS did not satisfy the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Alaska argued that the DOI was required under NEPA to amass sufficient data to provide a factual basis for responsible impact prediction or mitigation and that the DOI had no discretion to reject the suggestion of the CEQ and EPA to delay the sale. The district court found that the DOI complied with NEPA, and Alaska appealed.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Bazelon, C.J.)

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