Another 1st Circuit Decision Deferring to Agency Judgment in an Environmental Case

Yesterday Judge Lynch, writing for herself and the other First Circuit judges who seem to be handling all the environmental cases reaching the Appeals Court these days, Judges Barron and Thompson, held that the United States Army Corps of Engineers didn't come close to acting arbitrarily and capriciously in limiting its environmental review of a transmission line from Quebec to Maine for the benefit of Massachusetts.  In fact, the First Circuit delves into the applicable regulations in considerable detail on the way to holding, among other things, that the Corps of Engineers did not abuse its discretion in determining that the roles played by different departments of the Federal Government did not "federalize" the project.

In reading the decision, my mind wandered to a different decision, also written by Judge Lynch almost nine years ago.  That decision, in Upper Blackstone Water Pollution District v. EPA, made quite a splash at the time for the lengths to which it went to explain the "extreme deference" owed to agencies in their exercise of scientific judgment.  There's no mention of Upper Blackstone in yesterday's opinion.  In fact no deference decisions are cited, only the applicable provision of the Administrative Procedures Act which, to me, is pretty clear evidence that, at least in the First Circuit, judicial deference in environmental cases is alive and well.