The United States Forest Service (Forest Service) proposed to permit commercial logging in five areas of the Payette National Forest. The Forest Service completed environmental assessments (EAs) and issued a finding of no significant impact (FONSI) for the West Pine Skyline, Filly Creek, and Rubicon timber sales and completed environmental impact statements (EISs) for the Fourmile and North Round Valley sales. The Forest Service approved all five sales. The Idaho Sporting Congress (ISC) challenged the Forest Service's use of "supplemental information reports" (SIRs) to correct deficiencies in previous documents, alleging violations of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)[1] and the National Forest Management Act (NFMA).[2] The Ninth Circuit held that the Forest Service violated NEPA because the agency was not using the SIRs to evaluate new information, but rather to supplement the EAs and EISs with required information and analysis missing from the original NEPA documents.

Following the Ninth Circuit's decision in Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain v. United States Forest Service,[3] ISC filed suit to block nine sales in the Payette National Forest, including the five at issue in this suit. After the district court denied a preliminary injunction, which the Ninth Circuit affirmed,[4] ISC and the Forest Service entered into a settlement agreement. The agreement provided that ISC would dismiss its lawsuit without prejudice and the Forest Service would complete SIRs to "examine whether further environmental review and documentation is required."[5] The Forest Service's SIRs all concluded that there was no need to correct, supplement, or revise the NEPA documents or the agency's decision.

ISC then sought a preliminary injunction of the five timber sales, alleging that the Forest Service violated NEPA and NFMA. Plaintiffs claimed that the original EAs and EISs were deficient under Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain and that NEPA prohibited the Forest Service from using SIRs to correct the deficiencies. The district court found that although the original documents clearly failed the requirements set out in Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain, the Forest Service could supplement the EAs and EISs with SIRs under NEPA. [6] Thus, the district court concluded that ISC failed to raise a serious question on the merits and denied the preliminary injunction.

The Ninth Circuit determined that the district court abused its discretion because it based its denial of ISC's motion for a preliminary injunction on an erroneous reading of NEPA. SIRs have a limited role as a non-NEPA environmental evaluation procedure; they may be used only to determine if new information or circumstances warrant a supplemental EA or EIS.[7] Here, the Forest Service was not using the SIRs to evaluate new information, but rather to supplement the EAs and EISs with required information and analysis missing from the original NEPA documents. The Ninth Circuit held that "[i]t is inconsistent with NEPA for an agency to use an SIR, rather than a supplemental EA or EIS, to correct this type of lapse."[8]

The SIRs also violated NEPA's timing requirements. The Ninth Circuit has held that EAs and EISs must be prepared early so that they are used as a part of the decision-making process.[9] In this case, the Forest Service did not formally reopen its decision-making process or allow administrative appeal of the SIRs. This violated the timing requirement because the Forest Service had already approved the timber sales before compiling the previously required information in the SIRs. The Forest Service argued that because the SIRs were stipulated in the settlement agreement with ISC, the plaintiffs should not be permitted to challenge the use of the SIRs to supplement the EAs and EISs. The district court did not base its decision on these grounds, but rather on its interpretation of NEPA, which the Ninth Circuit found erroneous. The Ninth Circuit stated, however, that on remand the district court may consider whether the parties could stipulate to the use of SIRs to supplement NEPA documents in a settlement and whether the Forest Service and ISC did so.

Finally, the Ninth Circuit determined that ISC had demonstrated that the balance of hardships tipped in its favor. The Forest Service admitted that logging activities had begun prior to the Ninth Circuit's grant of an injunction pending appeal in Filly Creek and would have begun soon at Rubicon and Fourmile. The West Pine Skyline logging was already seventy-five percent complete. The Ninth Circuit held that this environmental harm to old growth forests outweighed financial hardship to the Forest Service, which tipped the balance in favor of injunctive relief.[10] Thus, "given the district court's finding that the Forest Service's original EAs and EISs 'clearly fail' to satisfy the requirements of [Neighbours of] Cuddy Mountain, and because it is otherwise inconsistent with the structure and purpose of NEPA for the Forest Service to use SIRs to supplement these EAs and EISs," the Ninth Circuit concluded that ISC had succeeded in "raising serious questions on the merits."[11] The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction as an abuse of discretion and remanded with instructions to grant a preliminary injunction pending a final determination on the merits.