It's been a lazy series of days for the Ninth Circuit and California appellate courts lately. Before today, the Ninth Circuit published a grand total of two opinions in the last ten days. And on Thursday and Friday, the Court of Appeal published . . . nothing. Tough to talk about published opinions that don't exist.
Today, at least, sees one published opinion from the Ninth Circuit, and (thus far) another one from the Court of Appeal. The latter is slightly interesting. Usually, environmental challenges are brought by anti-development or wildlife advocates; for example, to stop a housing or commercial development.
But this opinion involves the exact opposite.
Ventura County passed an ordinance that set aside 163,000 acres of less developed land so that wild animals can roam around without being disturbed by human activities. A pro-business entity -- the California Construction and Industrial Minerals Association -- sued, claiming that the ordinance was, among other things, inconsistent with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which, as you likely know, is a pro-environmental statute. According to the plaintiff, the County had to do an extensive study before setting aside the land to protect wildlife.
The trial court dismissed the lawsuit, and the Court of Appeal affirms. Setting aside land for wildlife does not harm wildlife. That's basically the point of two categorical exemptions from CEQA. (Exemption No. 7: "Actions taken by regulatory agencies as authorized by state law or local ordinance to assure the maintenance, restoration, or enhancement of a natural resource where the regulatory process involves procedures for protection of the environment." Exemption No. 8: "Actions taken by regulatory agencies, as authorized by state or local ordinance, to assure the maintenance, restoration, enhancement, or protection of the environment where the regulatory process involves procedures for protection of the environment.") Plus the "common sense" exception, which seems equally applicable here.
Sometimes people file CEQA actions merely to delay things, even when there's not a high likelihood of success. Perhaps that was the goal here. Or perhaps the plaintiffs radically poorly assessed the probability that they would win this one.
