Natural Resources Defense Council v. Zinke

Background

Plaintiffs, nonprofit organizations working on wildlife conservation and environmental issues, challenged the Department of the Interior’s International Wildlife Conservation Council under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. They alleged that the Department failed to follow required procedures when establishing the Council, failed to balance its membership, failed to create safeguards against special-interest influence, and failed to make required records public. Because the Federal Advisory Committee Act does not provide a private right to sue, plaintiffs brought their claims under the Administrative Procedure Act.

The Council held five meetings in 2018 and 2019 and created four subcommittees. Its charter provided that it would terminate two years after filing unless renewed. The charter was not renewed, and the Council ended in December 2019 while this lawsuit was pending. Plaintiffs nevertheless sought summary judgment on their claims. Defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(h)(3), arguing that the case had become moot.

Mootness and the non-records claims

Mootness is a jurisdictional rule requiring dismissal when no live dispute remains that a federal court can resolve. The Court held that the claims concerning the Council’s establishment, membership, meetings, and safeguards were moot because the Council no longer existed. The Court could not order the Council to stop meeting, reconstitute its membership, or otherwise correct its former structure. Any ruling on those issues would be only an advisory opinion.

The Court therefore dismissed the plaintiffs’ non-records claims as moot.

Records claims

The Court treated the claims for disclosure of records under section 10(b) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act separately. The Council’s end did not automatically make those claims moot because an agency may still have to disclose covered documents after an advisory committee is dissolved. The records claims would become moot if the requested documents had already been disclosed.

The defendants submitted thousands of pages of records and declarations describing their searches for additional documents. The Court found those declarations sufficiently detailed and non-conclusory to receive a presumption of good faith. Plaintiffs identified some documents that had already been disclosed and received additional documents identified during the agency’s searches. Their remaining arguments asserted that more documents might exist, but the Court found that speculation did not meet their burden to show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that undisclosed records remained.

The Court also rejected plaintiffs’ attempt to obtain deliberative materials under other Federal Advisory Committee Act provisions as a way to address the Council’s allegedly unbalanced membership. It found that those provisions did not require the requested disclosure and that a precedent involving a committee member did not extend to these plaintiffs, who were not Council members.

Exceptions to mootness

The plaintiffs argued that the defendants should not be allowed to moot the case by permitting the Council to end during the litigation. The Court applied the voluntary-cessation exception, which can preserve a case when a defendant ends challenged conduct but may reasonably resume it. The Court held that the defendants met their burden because the Council’s scheduled expiration was known from the beginning, the time for renewal had passed, and plaintiffs offered no evidence that the defendants would recreate the Council or repeat the challenged conduct.

The Court also found that the defendants had shown that the alleged effects of the violations had been completely and permanently eliminated because the records had been disclosed. Plaintiffs did not argue for another exception to mootness, such as a dispute likely to recur but end before judicial review.

Disposition

Judge Alison J. Nathan granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss and dismissed the case for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The Court rejected the requests for declaratory and injunctive relief because those remedies could not revive a moot case. The order stated that it resolved Docket Nos. 73 and 75 and directed the Clerk of Court to enter judgment and close the case.