## Facts

- A local port authority proposed expanding Toledo Express Airport to support Burlington Air Express’s relocation of its air-cargo hub.
- Residents living near the airport and users of nearby parkland opposed the expansion, citing expected aircraft noise and other environmental harms.
- The expansion area was near Oak Openings Preserve Metropark, including a primitive campground used by one petitioner.
- Burlington had considered multiple potential hub sites in several Midwestern states before selecting Toledo, citing operational and location advantages.
- The FAA, as lead agency, prepared an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) under NEPA assessing construction and operational changes and comparing the proposal primarily to a no-action alternative.
- The FAA issued an order approving the expansion.
- Petitioners sought judicial review in the D.C. Circuit, alleging violations of NEPA, related environmental requirements concerning parkland and noise, and CEQ/FAA procedural regulations, including rules governing selection of an EIS contractor.
- The court reviewed the FAA’s order under the APA’s arbitrary-and-capricious standard.

## Issues

1. Whether the FAA’s statement of project purpose and need improperly tracked Burlington’s business objectives, thereby unlawfully restricting the range of “reasonable alternatives” under NEPA.
2. Whether the EIS took the required “hard look” at environmental impacts, particularly noise effects on nearby residents and park resources.
3. Whether the FAA complied with statutory and regulatory protections implicated by potential impacts on parkland and recreation areas.
4. Whether the FAA violated CEQ regulations by allowing the project sponsor, rather than the lead agency, to select the EIS contractor.

## Decision

- The court largely upheld the FAA’s approval, concluding the agency complied with NEPA’s substantive procedural duties and with applicable environmental statutes and regulations.
- The court held the FAA reasonably defined the project’s objectives in light of the applicant’s goals and was not required to evaluate every conceivable alternative location outside the Toledo framework.
- The court found the EIS’s noise and related impact analysis adequate under the “hard look” standard and within the bounds of reasoned agency decision-making.
- The court found a CEQ regulatory violation because the EIS contractor was selected by the project sponsor rather than by the FAA as lead agency.
- The court remanded for the limited purpose of curing the contractor-selection defect, leaving the substantive approval otherwise intact.
- A partial dissent would have required a broader alternatives analysis and stricter enforcement of EIS-independence safeguards.

## Legal Principles

- NEPA is procedural: agencies must disclose and evaluate environmental consequences and consider reasonable alternatives, but NEPA does not mandate a particular outcome.
- Review of an EIS is deferential under the APA; courts assess whether the agency took a “hard look” and made a reasoned decision, not whether the court would reach the same policy result.
- An agency may frame an EIS purpose-and-need statement to reflect a project proponent’s legitimate objectives; NEPA does not require a purpose so broad that it forces analysis of every possible alternative.
- An alternatives analysis is adequate if it addresses feasible and reasonable options consistent with the project’s goals, including a no-action alternative, and does not omit reasonable alternatives by arbitrary constraint.
- CEQ regulations require that an EIS contractor be selected by the lead agency to preserve independence; sponsor selection violates the regulation and can warrant a limited remand even absent a finding of substantive bias.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit upheld the FAA’s NEPA analysis for an airport expansion supporting a private cargo-hub relocation, deferring to a purpose-and-need statement tied to the applicant’s goals and finding the impacts analysis sufficient, but remanded solely to correct a procedural violation of CEQ rules requiring the lead agency—not the project sponsor—to select the EIS contractor.


Citizens Against Burlington, Inc. v. Busey, 938 F.2d 190 (D.C. Cir. 1991)