## Facts

- The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed listing the Bruneau Hot Springs Snail, found in hot springs along the Bruneau River in Idaho, as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
- FWS’s concern was that groundwater pumping could reduce spring discharge by drawing down a regional aquifer that fed the springs and the snail’s habitat.
- After extended delays and additional fieldwork, surveys identified many more colonies at other springs, but a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) study concluded those springs were hydrologically connected to the same aquifer and remained vulnerable to aquifer depletion.
- FWS relied heavily on a USGS report containing key hydrologic data and analysis but did not place the report in the public docket or identify it when reopening the comment period before issuing the final listing rule.
- Agricultural organizations and other plaintiffs challenged the final listing, arguing (1) the ESA’s statutory deadlines had lapsed and (2) FWS violated notice-and-comment requirements by withholding the USGS report.
- The district court set aside the listing rule; conservation groups that had intervened to defend the listing appealed after the federal defendants did not.

## Issues

1. Whether the conservation intervenors had standing to appeal and were properly allowed to intervene to defend the listing rule.
2. Whether the ESA’s 12- and 18-month listing deadlines bar FWS from listing a species after those deadlines have passed.
3. Whether FWS’s failure to disclose and solicit comment on the USGS report violated procedural rulemaking requirements under the ESA and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
4. What remedy is appropriate for the procedural violation.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit held the conservation intervenors were properly permitted to intervene and had Article III standing to appeal because vacating the listing would harm their conservation interests and reinstatement would redress that injury.
- The court held the ESA’s listing deadlines are not jurisdictional cutoffs and do not strip FWS of authority to finalize a listing after the deadlines; they function as a prompt to act.
- The court held FWS committed a procedural violation by relying on a key USGS report without making it available for public review and comment.
- The court vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded with instructions to remand to FWS to disclose the USGS report, provide an opportunity for public comment, and reconsider the listing in light of the completed process.

## Legal Principles

- ESA listing deadlines in 16 U.S.C. § 1533(b)(6) are mandatory timing directives but not a bar to agency action taken after the deadlines; the remedy for delay is typically to compel action, not to nullify authority.
- Under the APA and the ESA’s public-comment requirements, an agency must provide access to technical studies and data on which it relies so the public has a meaningful opportunity to comment.
- Withholding a significant, non-cumulative scientific report that supplies key data underlying a final rule is a procedural defect rendering the rule arbitrary and capricious.
- In selecting a remedy for procedural error, a court may remand for correction of notice-and-comment deficiencies rather than eliminate regulatory protections that could increase the risk to a threatened species.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit ruled that missed ESA listing deadlines do not eliminate FWS’s power to list a species, but FWS must disclose significant scientific materials it relies on during rulemaking; the proper remedy was remand to cure the notice-and-comment defect through disclosure of the USGS report and renewed public comment.


Idaho Farm Bureau Fed’n v. Babbitt, 58 F.3d 1392 (9th Cir. 1995)