Pit River Tribe v. Bureau of Land Mgmt.

• Decision Date: 01 June 2022
• Docket Number: 2:19-cv-2483 KJM AC
• Parties: PIT RIVER TRIBE; NATIVE COALITION FOR MEDICINE LAKE HIGHLANDS DEFENSE; MOUNT SHASTA BIOREGIONAL ECOLOGY CENTER; and QUALITY ENVIRONMENT, Plaintiffs, v. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; CALPINE CORPORATION; and CPN TELEPHONE FLAT, INC., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of California

PIT RIVER TRIBE; NATIVE COALITION FOR MEDICINE LAKE HIGHLANDS DEFENSE; MOUNT SHASTA BIOREGIONAL ECOLOGY CENTER; and QUALITY ENVIRONMENT, Plaintiffs,
v.
BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT; UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; CALPINE CORPORATION; and CPN TELEPHONE FLAT, INC., Defendants.

No. 2:19-cv-2483 KJM AC

United States District Court, E.D. California

June 1, 2022

ORDER

ALLISON CLAIRE, UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.

This case arises under the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”) and challenges leases issued by the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”). The case is before the court on plaintiffs' motion to authorize discovery outside the administrative record. ECF No. 116. The matter was taken under submission on the papers. ECF No. 119. The parties filed a comprehensive joint statement pursuant to the Local Rules of this court. ECF No. 120. The parties have met their meet and confer obligations. Id. at 4. Having considered all the briefing, the undersigned GRANTS plaintiff's motion.

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I. Relevant Background

The parties submitted a stipulated summary of the case in their joint statement, ECF No. 120 at 2-3, which the court accepts and incorporates largely verbatim below for ease of reference.

The First Amended Complaint in this case asserts two causes of action for failure to comply with a mandatory duty under 5 U.S.C. § 706(1). See ECF Doc. 63 at 18-19, ¶¶ 79-83. Specifically, the Complaint alleges that Federal Defendants have a legal duty to terminate federal geothermal lease CA12372 and the Glass Mountain Unit for failure by leaseholder and unit operator Calpine to comply with the “diligent efforts” requirements of the Geothermal Steam Act, 30 U.S.C. § 1005, and the Bureau of Land Management's (“BLM”) implementing regulations. Id.^[1] Defendants deny these claims and assert various affirmative defenses. ECF Doc. 80 at 7-8 (Calpine Defendants); ECF Doc. 83 at 10-11 (Federal Defendants).

On January 11, 2021, the Court denied Defendants' motions to dismiss Plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint in its entirety, ECF Doc. 79 at 5-15, but granted Calpine Defendants' motion to dismiss Plaintiffs' first prayer for relief which sought affirmative declaratory relief against Calpine, id. at 15-16. Plaintiffs then sought limited discovery to ascertain the basis for Defendants' denials of liability and affirmative defenses. Plaintiffs believe that discovery is allowed for a failure-to-act claim under section 706(1) of the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”) because there is no agency action for which an administrative record is available. Defendants believe that all APA cases, including failure-to-act cases filed under 5 U.S.C. § 706(1), are limited to an administrative record and that no civil discovery is permitted. After Plaintiffs propounded a set of requests for production of documents and targeted interrogatories for information about government and corporate officials responsible for overseeing the lease and

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unit, Defendants sought protective orders and Plaintiffs then moved to compel discovery responses. In accordance with Local Rule 251, the parties filed a Joint Statement of Discovery Disagreement, ECF Doc. 93, and the Court thereafter issued a discovery Order, ECF Doc. 95.

In that Order, this Court agreed with the district court in Seattle Audubon Society v. Norton, No. C05-1835L, 2006 WL 1518895, at *3 (W.D. Wash. May 25, 2006), that “the administrative record is the presumptive starting point for discovery in this case.” ECF Doc. 95 at 7. Accordingly, the Court ordered the parties to stipulate to a mutually agreeable production schedule for the administrative record. Id. Thereafter, the parties submitted a stipulation setting forth a schedule for production of the record and a process for requesting supplementation and resolving any discovery disputes. ECF Doc. 99. Pursuant to this schedule, Federal Defendants filed a “Notice of Lodging of Administrative Record” on July 14, 2021. ECF Doc. 100. Under the stipulated schedule, the other parties had until August 4, 2021 to request supplementation of the lodged record. ECF Doc. 99. This deadline was ultimately extended to December 3, 2021 by four stipulated extensions to allow the non-federal parties additional time to review the Record and to submit any additional documents to Federal Defendants, and to allow the Federal Defendants an opportunity to review any documents submitted by the non-federal parties to determine whether those documents should have been included in the Record. See ECF Docs. 105, 109, 111, and 112. Within the timeframe agreed to by the parties, Calpine Defendants submitted a limited number of documents for Federal Defendants' consideration. Plaintiffs did not provide any documents to Federal Defendants. Federal Defendants filed a “Notice of Lodging of Supplemented Administrative Record” on February 25, 2022. ECF Doc. 113.

The Court's June 8, 2021, discovery Order also addressed and denied Calpine Defendants' separate motion for a protective order from any discovery on the ground that the Complaint does not seek any affirmative relief against them. ECF Doc. 95 at 7-9. Calpine Defendants moved for reconsideration of this holding from Judge Mendez and sought a protective order “to prohibit Plaintiffs from obtaining any discovery against Calpine in this case.” ECF Doc. 96 at 6. Federal Defendants “support[ed]” Calpine's motion, emphasizing that even if discovery of Calpine were permitted, judicial review of Plaintiffs' claims would be limited to the administrative record

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unless Plaintiffs can “establish, by ‘clear evidence' that one or more of the narrow exceptions to the record review rule applies.” ECF Doc. 103 at 2 (citation omitted). Federal Defendants did not file a separate motion for reconsideration. Judge Mendez granted Calpine's motion for reconsideration, overruling the magistrate judge's Order as to Calpine Defendants and granting the requested protective order. ECF Doc. 110.

II. Analysis

A. Preliminary Considerations

Before addressing the merits of the present motion, the court must address two preliminary arguments...