Swanson Group mfg.llc v. Bernhardt

CourtDistrict Court, District of Columbia
DecidedSeptember 30, 2019
DocketCivil Action No. 2015-1419
StatusPublished

This text of Swanson Group mfg.llc v. Bernhardt (Swanson Group mfg.llc v. Bernhardt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, District of Columbia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Swanson Group mfg.llc v. Bernhardt, (D.D.C. 2019).

Opinion

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

SWANSON GROUP MFG. LLC, ef al., ) Plaintiffs, v. Civil Case No. 15-1419 (RJL) DAVID L. BERNHARDT, Secretary of the Interior, ) F I L E Dp Defendant. SEP 30 2019 MEMORANDUM OPINION ——_ courts for ihe Dstietet Columb

(September@P 2019) [Dkt. #4 54, 57]

In the Oregon and California Railroad and Coos Bay Wagon Road Grant Lands Act of 1937, 43 U.S.C. §§ 2601-05 (“the O&C Act’), Congress mandated that the Department of the Interior must sell or offer for sale, every year, timber from land subject to the Act in an amount “not less than the annual sustained yield capacity [of the land] when the same has been determined and declared.” /d. § 2601. Plaintiffs Starfire Lumber Company and

South Coast Lumber Company! (collectively, “plaintiffs”) allege that the Bureau of Land

' Additional plaintiffs were named in the complaint, but Starfire Lumber Company and South Coast Lumber Company are the only two that remain in this suit. On June 28, 2016, I dismissed the American Forest Resource Council, Douglas Timber Operators, Swanson Group Manufacturing, Hull-Oaks Lumber Company, Seneca Jones Timber Company, Seneca Sawmill Company, Freres Lumber Company, C & D Lumber Company, Starfire Lumber Company, Boise Cascade Wood Products, South Coast Lumber Company, Robert Ragon, Scott Keep, and Robert Freres, Jr. for failure to satisfy Article III’s standing requirements. See Swanson Grp. Mfg. LLC v. Jewell, 195 F. Supp. 3d 66, 72-79 (D.D.C. 2016) (“Swanson IV’). After a change in the governing law, several of the dismissed plaintiffs moved for reconsideration. | granted that motion in part, reinstating only Starfire and South Coast. See Mem. Order at 4 (Sept. 29, 2017) [Dkt #52]. In their Motion for Summary Judgment, plaintiffs seek to, again, relitigate standing for several of the previously dismissed parties. But because two plaintiffs were already reinstated and have standing to press the claims at issue, J “need not address whether the other plaintiffs have standing” as well. Carpenters Indus. Council v. Zinke, 854 F.3d 1,9 (D.C. Cir. 2017); see also Mountain States Legal Found. v. Glickman, 92 F.3d 1228, 1232 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (“For each claim, if constitutional and prudential standing

1 Management (“BLM”), the agency within the Department of the Interior responsible for administering O&C land, routinely violates this timber sale mandate. They sued the Secretary of the Interior? (“defendant”), seeking to compel his compliance with the O&C Act, and have now moved for summary judgment. Defendant cross-moved for judgment in its favor. Because I conclude that BLM has violated the O&C Act, and for all of the reasons that follow, plaintiffs’ motion will be GRANTED IN PART, and defendant’s cross-motion will be DENIED. BACKGROUND

“The O&C Act governs BLM’s management of approximately two million acres of land in western Oregon....” Am. Forest Res. Council v. Steed, No. 16-1599, 2019 WL 1440887, at *2 (D.D.C. Mar. 31, 2019). Timberland subject to the Act must “be managed ... for permanent forest production.” 43 U.S.C. § 2601. And every year, timber that is grown on O&C land must be sold or offered for sale. In the O&C Act, Congress provides that “timber . . . in an amount not less than one-half billion feet board measure, or not less than the annual sustained yield capacity when the same has been determined and declared, shall be sold annually, or so much thereof as can be sold at reasonable prices on anormal market.” /d.

BLM is the federal agency responsible both for “determin[ing]| and declar[ing]” the

O&C land’s “annual sustained yield capacity,” 43 U.S.C. § 2601, and for administering the

can be shown for at least one plaintiff, we need not consider the standing of the other plaintiffs to raise that claim.”). I decline to do so here.

* The Secretary of the Interior was named as the defendant in his official capacity as the official who oversees BLM. See Corrected Compl. {9 1, 69 [Dkt. # 5].

2 required timber sales. See U.S. Dep’t of the Interior, BLM, O&C Sustained Yield Act: the Land, the Law, the Legacy (1937-1987) at 13-15, 17, available at https://www.blm.gov/ or/files/OC_History.pdf. In 1995, BLM issued resource management plans (“the 1995 RMPs”) that divided O&C land into five districts and one resource planning area. See Administrative Record (“AR”) at AR_ 20459; AR_20528-529; AR 20582; AR 20687; AR_ 20758; AR 20947; AR_21041; AR 21232; AR 21250; AR_21585; AR_21663; AR_ 21842; AR_21900 [Dkt. # 64]. The 1995 RMPs then declared a base allowable sale quantity (“ASQ”) for each district or area. See AR_20528; AR_20758; AR_21041; AR_21250; AR_ 21663; AR_21900. Defendant represents that BLM uses the term “ASQ” synonymously with ‘annual sustained yield capacity,” the phrase that appears in the O&C Act’s timber sale mandate. See Fed. Def.’s Cross-Mot. Summ. J. at 4 [Dkt. #57]. But BLM also cautions that the ASQs declared in the 1995 RMPs are merely “estimate[s] of annual average timber sale volume likely to be achieved from lands allocated to planned, sustainable harvest.” AR 20528. The 1995 RMPs provide that “[t]he actual sustainable timber sale level... may deviate by as much as 20 percent from the identified [ASQ].” AR_20529.

The 1995 RMPs remained in effect through 2015, when this suit was filed. The next year, however, BLM adopted new resource management plans (“the 2016 RMPs”) with adjusted base ASQs. See Northwestern & Coastal Oregon Record of Decision (“NCO ROD”) at 6 [Dkt. # 57-5]; Southwestern Oregon Record of Decision (“SWO ROD”) at 5 [Dkt. # 57-6]. The new RMPs increased the extent to which BLM could deviate from the

base ASQs in a given year, permitting “as much as 40 percent variation on an annual basis.”

3 NCO ROD at 6; see also SWO ROD at 6. But they required BLM to maintain harvest levels within 20% or 30% of the ASQs—depending on the district—over the course of a decade. See NCO ROD at 6; SWO ROD at 6.

Plaintiffs purchase timber grown on land subject to the O&C Act and use the timber to produce forest products. BLM’s annual sustained yield capacity declarations, therefore, affect the timber supply available to plaintiffs, and BLM’s failure to offer for sale a volume of timber commensurate with those declarations harms plaintiffs’ businesses. As a factual matter, there is little dispute that such failures have occurred. BLM has “acknowledged a shortfall in timber volume offered” for sale as a “result of unforeseen circumstances and shortcomings in the 1995 RMPs.” Decl. of Richard Hardt in Supp. of Fed. Def.’s Cross- Mot. Summ. J. (“Hardt Decl.’’) 4 2 [Dkt. # 57-7]. In Counts One and Four of the operative complaint,’ plaintiffs allege that BLM violates the O&C Act and the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706 (“the APA”), every year that annual timber offerings are less than the declared annual sustained yield capacity. See Corrected Compl. 44 97-101, 117-119.

This is not the first time plaintiffs have sued to challenge a shortfall in O&C timber sales. By their “own admission, this action seeks to restate plaintiffs’ claims from Swanson Group Mfg. LLC v. Jewell, No.

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