Whitewater Draw Natural Resource Conservation District, et al. v. Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, et al.

The National Policy Act (“NEPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 4331 et seq. (2012) mandates that all federal agencies consider environmental impacts before acting. The Council on Environmental Quality (“CEQ”), which is responsible for guiding the implementation of NEPA, has mandated that all agencies promulgate NEPA procedures through Notice and Comment rulemaking to use for their NEPA compliance. Do the final NEPA procedures so promulgated fail the two pronged test in Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154 (1997) for finality under the Administrative Procedures Act if they do not in themselves apply the rules they thus created to actual programs or projects?

Does a plaintiff have standing to challenge procedural violations of immigration related actions if the plaintiff can show: 1) the agency violated its procedural obligations; 2) these procedural obligations were meant to protect plaintiff’s concrete interests, and 3) it is reasonably probable that the challenged action will threaten plaintiff’s concrete interests?