Summers v. Earth Island Institute
Issues
Whether the APA and Supreme Court precedent allow parties to directly challenge the Forest Service’s regulations limiting public notice, comment, and administrative appeals for certain projects even if the parties are not simultaneously challenging a site-specific application of the regulations.
Earth Island Institute and other conservation groups sued the United States Forest Service after it authorized application of regulations 36 C.F.R. 215.4(a) and 36 C.F.R. 215.12(f) to a planned salvage logging project in the Sequoia National Forest. The conservation groups claimed that the regulations, which limit public notice, comment and administrative appeals, were invalid under the Administrative Procedure Act, which protects the ability of the public to appeal administrative actions. The parties settled the dispute over the regulations as they were applied to the salvage logging project, but the conservation groups continued the suit as a direct facial challenge to the regulations themselves. At issue before the Supreme Court in this case is whether judicial review of the regulations was proper, whether the conservation groups established standing and ripeness to challenge the regulations after settling the controversy over the regulations’ application to the specific project, and whether issuing a nationwide injunction was a proper remedy. The outcome of the case will influence federal agencies’ requirements to provide administrative appeals, the ability of the public to challenge administrative actions, and the scope of equitable remedies against improper applications of agency regulations.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
1. Whether the Forest Service’s promulgation of 36 C.F.R. 215.4(a) and 215.12(f), as distinct from the particular site-specific project to which those regulations were applied in this case, was a proper subject of judicial review.
2. Whether respondents established standing to bring this suit.
3. Whether respondents’ challenge to 36 C.F.R. 215.4(a) and 215.12(f) remained ripe and was otherwise judicially cognizable after the timber sale to which the regulations had been applied was withdrawn, and respondents’ challenges to that sale had been voluntarily dismissed with prejudice, pursuant to a settlement between the parties.
4. Whether the court of appeals erred in affirming the nationwide injunction issued by the district court.
In 1992, Congress enacted the Forest Service Decisionmaking and Appeals Reform Act (“ARA”). See Brief for Petitioners, Priscilla Summers et al.