## Facts

- Paul E. Merrell, a private landowner, challenged EPA’s continuing registration of seven herbicides sprayed by a local road department along a roadside right-of-way leading to his wife’s farm.
- Merrell alleged the registrations were invalid because EPA had not made public the information supporting the registrations.
- He further alleged EPA violated NEPA and its regulations by failing to prepare a site-specific environmental impact statement (EIS) for each right-of-way use registration or to explain why an EIS was unnecessary.
- Merrell sought injunctive relief against EPA’s registrations and moved for partial summary judgment.
- EPA and industry intervenors moved for judgment on the pleadings; the district court treated those motions as summary judgment motions.

## Issues

1. Whether EPA must comply with NEPA’s EIS and related procedural requirements when registering pesticides under FIFRA.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit reviewed the summary judgment ruling de novo.
- The court affirmed summary judgment for EPA.
- The court held EPA is not required to comply with NEPA when registering pesticides under FIFRA.
- The court concluded Congress did not intend NEPA to impose additional procedural requirements on EPA’s FIFRA pesticide-registration decisions.

## Legal Principles

- Where Congress establishes a detailed, environmentally focused regulatory scheme for a specific agency action, courts may infer that NEPA’s procedures are displaced for that action.
- FIFRA’s pesticide-registration framework requires EPA to evaluate environmental and health effects under a statutory standard focused on avoiding “unreasonable adverse effects on the environment,” supporting the conclusion that FIFRA supplies the relevant environmental review process for registrations.
- On summary judgment, the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law when no genuine dispute of material fact exists; a purely legal statutory-interpretation question may be resolved on that basis.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that NEPA’s EIS procedures do not apply to EPA’s pesticide registrations under FIFRA because FIFRA’s comprehensive registration scheme reflects congressional intent that FIFRA, not NEPA, governs the environmental review requirements for those registration decisions.


Merrell v. Thomas, 807 F.2d 776 (9th Cir. 1986)