Suburban O'Hare Com'n v. Dole, 84 C 10387.

• Decision Date: 28 February 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84 C 10387.,84 C 10387.
• Parties: SUBURBAN O'HARE COMMISSION; The Village of Addison; The Village of Bensenville; The City of Des Plaines; The Village of Elk Grove Village; The City of Elmhurst; The Village of Franklin Park; The Village of Harwood Heights; The Village of Itasca; The Village of Niles; The Village of Norridge; The City of Park Ridge; The Village of Schiller Park; The City of Wood Dale; and Lawrence C. Bieneman, Plaintiffs, v. Elizabeth Hanford DOLE, Secretary of the Department of Transportation; Russell A. Olson, Regional Representative of the Department of Transportation, Region V; Donald Engen, Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration; Paul Bohr, Director, Great Lakes Region, Federal Aviation Administration; John Guidotti, Supervisor, Illinois Section, Chicago Airports District Office, Federal Aviation Administration; The City of Chicago, a municipal corporation; and Thomas Kapsalis; Commissioner of the Department of Aviation of the City of Chicago, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

603 F. Supp. 1013

SUBURBAN O'HARE COMMISSION; The Village of Addison; The Village of Bensenville; The City of Des Plaines; The Village of Elk Grove Village; The City of Elmhurst; The Village of Franklin Park; The Village of Harwood Heights; The Village of Itasca; The Village of Niles; The Village of Norridge; The City of Park Ridge; The Village of Schiller Park; The City of Wood Dale; and Lawrence C. Bieneman, Plaintiffs, v. Elizabeth Hanford DOLE, Secretary of the Department of Transportation; Russell A. Olson, Regional Representative of the Department of Transportation, Region V; Donald Engen, Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration; Paul Bohr, Director, Great Lakes Region, Federal Aviation Administration; John Guidotti, Supervisor, Illinois Section, Chicago Airports District Office, Federal Aviation Administration; The City of Chicago, a municipal corporation; and Thomas Kapsalis; Commissioner of the Department of Aviation of the City of Chicago, Defendants.

No. 84 C 10387.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, E.D.

February 28, 1985.

Joseph Karaganis, A. Bruce White, Karaganis, Gail & White, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs.

Michael Conway, Jeremiah Marsh, Hopkins & Sutter, Chicago, Ill., for the City.

Robert T. Grueneberg, Gail Ginsberg, U.S. Asst. Attys., Chicago, Ill., for F.A.A.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

ROVNER, District Judge.

Plaintiffs consist of numerous suburban municipal entities surrounding O'Hare International Airport ("O'Hare"), the Suburban O'Hare Commission, an organization of Illinois municipal corporations created in 1982 for the purpose of protecting its members and their citizenry from environmental damage caused by O'Hare, and Lawrence C. Bieneman, a private citizen of one of the plaintiff villages.¹ The defendants are various officials and employees connected with the Federal Aviation Administration ("FAA"), the Department of Transportation, and the City of Chicago and Chicago itself as a municipal corporation ("City defendants"). In its complaint, filed in this Court on December 4, 1984, Suburban O'Hare challenges an adjudicatory decision of the FAA rendered on November 14, 1984 by which the FAA approved Chicago's 20-year "Master Plan" for the construction and operation of commercial air carrier facilities for the metropolitan Chicago area to meet long-term aircraft operations demand at air carrier airports. The FAA not only approved the expansion of aircraft operations at O'Hare, but also rejected other alternatives to handle the 20-year demand which would not increase operations at O'Hare.²

Suburban O'Hare's complaint consists of 78 pages, 188 enumerated paragraphs, and 6 exhibits, some of which are lengthy in themselves. Although a detailed explanation of the complaint is not necessary for purposes of this Opinion, some discussion of the history and background of this case, as alleged by plaintiffs in their complaint, is helpful to an understanding of its present procedural posture.

Background

The FAA's November 14, 1984 decision was the culmination of a dispute that began many years before and resulted, in part, from the procedural decision-making framework created by a Consent Decree entered by Judge Stanley J. Roszkowski of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on October 14, 1982 in the case of State of Illinois ex rel. Scott v. Butterfield, No. 74 C 2410 ("Illinois v. Butterfield litigation"). According to the complaint, for many years the mayors and city councils of the plaintiff communities had asked for reduction in the noise and air pollution emanating from O'Hare. Suburban O'Hare alleges that instead of addressing these problems, the City defendants and the FAA had been following a piecemeal approach to the physical development of O'Hare which led to the ever-increasing expansion of O'Hare's capacity to accommodate flight operations far beyond its original design. Because the FAA awarded financial grants to Chicago for the construction of individual projects without examining the long-term expansion program as a whole, frequently after the projects had already been built, the issue of how best to meet long term aviation growth was ignored.

To stop this piecemeal expansion of O'Hare, the State of Illinois and several of the plaintiffs in this case brought the Illinois v. Butterfield litigation, seeking disclosure of the City of Chicago's and the FAA's long-term aviation goals and a comprehensive exploration of alternatives to O'Hare expansion. The plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief under the National Environmental Policy Act, under the Administrative Procedure Act, and under various other federal statutes, to stop the expansion of O'Hare and the allegedly uncontrolled increase in aircraft operations, and noise and air pollution resulting therefrom. In addition to examining the alternatives to meet the long-term aviation operations demand for the Chicago metropolitan area, the plaintiffs wanted the FAA to select an alternative to meet the demand which did not involve the ever-increasing expansion of O'Hare.

The Consent Decree

The Consent Decree entered in the Illinois v. Butterfield litigation created a procedural framework for such comprehensive decision-making. According to Suburban O'Hare, in 1982 Chicago had proposed a massive construction program at O'Hare pursuant to an FAA sponsored "Master Plan." That Master Plan program involved the construction of hundreds of individual projects, and Chicago was ready to proceed with a number of these projects, designated as Phase I projects. Illinois and the plaintiff municipal entities in the Illinois v. Butterfield litigation were prepared to try to stop construction on Phase I projects by seeking injunctive relief. The Consent Decree thus resulted from an attempt to resolve competing interests: Phase I construction could proceed in return for the promise of the FAA and Chicago that all other construction proposed by the Master Plan, now called "Phase II" construction, would not commence until the FAA made a substantive decision to approve or disapprove the entire Master Plan proposal for meeting the 20-year metropolitan aircraft operations demand.

The Consent Decree itself provides in relevant part: that "all future development at O'Hare will comply with all then applicable requirements of Federal and State of Illinois laws requiring environmental analysis and processing" (Consent Decree, ¶ 1a); that construction of certain projects would not proceed until an Environmental Impact Statement was completed (Consent Decree, ¶ 1d); and that "the entire Master Plan development for O'Hare ... will be presented to the FAA for Airport Layout Plan approval and the related environmental review, as a single, comprehensive submission" (Consent Decree, ¶ 1f).

The Airport Layout Plan ("ALP") is the final product of the Master Plan process and is based on the various facilities developed in the Master Plan to meet the 20 year long-term aircraft operations demand of the Chicago metropolitan area. A Final Environmental Impact Statement ("FEIS") based on the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 4321, et seq. ("NEPA"), accompanied the ALP, which was submitted by Chicago to the FAA in April 9, 1984. On May 31, 1984, the FAA approved the FEIS. The FAA described the issue in its Record of Decision reflecting the approval of the ALP as follows:

The issue is whether to approve the Airport Layout Plan submitted by the City of Chicago. Approval of it would allow the City to proceed with implementing the proposed development at the airport and to request Federal funds for eligible items of development. Not approving it would prevent the City from proceeding with the development in a timely manner.

(Complaint, Exhibit 4 at p. 2.) On November 14, 1984, the FAA approved the ALP as the final product of Chicago's Master Plan. In the Record of Decision, the FAA specifically disavowed approval of the ALP for federal funding purposes:

Approval of the Airport Layout Plan does not represent approval as far as necessity for the development is concerned nor is it a commitment of Federal funds for any future development. It signifies a concurrence for planning purposes based on review of conformance with current standards for safety, utility, and efficiency.

(Complaint, Exhibit 4 at p. 2.)

The Present Suit

On December 4, 1984, Suburban O'Hare filed its complaint in this Court, together with a motion for a temporary restraining order and for a preliminary injunction, supported by extensive affidavits.³ The Complaint, although lengthy, is in two counts. In Count I, Suburban O'Hare asserts that the FAA and the City defendants, in approving the ALP in the November 14, 1984 decision, violated the "letter and the spirit" of the Consent Decree; NEPA; the Airport and Airway Improvement Act of 1982, 42 U.S.C. § 2201, et seq. ("AAIA"); Section 176(c) of the Clean Air Act; and plaintiffs' "constitutional right to full disclosure of all relevant data, calculations and methodology." (Complaint, ¶ 172.) Suburban O'Hare alleges that it has a claim for relief in Count I both to enforce the Consent Decree and under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 702, 706. (Complaint, ¶¶ 173, 175.) Suburban O'Hare prays that this Court declare that the November 14, 1984 FAA decision approving the Master Plan is "null, void and of no force and effect ..." and that this Court enjoin the defendants "from taking any steps in reliance" on that decision.⁴

Both the City defendants and the FAA have moved to dismiss Suburban O'Hare's complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted pursuant to Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.⁵ Because this Court holds that it lacks subject matter jurisdiction over this action, it does not reach the issues posed by the defendants' ...