Arbitrary and Capricious Test. In October 1985, four nonprofit organizations sued the Army Corps of Engineers, claiming that the corps had violated the National Environmental Poli-cy Act of 1969. The organizations asserted that the corps had failed to

Question

prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) based on information contained in two studies—an Ore-gon Department of Fish and Wildlife memorandum and a U.S. Soil Conservation Service sur-vey—suggesting that construction of the third dam would increase the temperature and turgidity of the Rogue River. The corps contended that the EIS was unnecessary, because on the basis of its own analysis, as well as that of independent research commissioned by the corps, the two studies were not indisputable and in any event were of exaggerated importance in assessing the project. Should the court order that the project be stopped? Discuss.

Answer 1

Arbitrary and capricious test
A federal district court denied the request that the corps be enjoined from completing the project. On appeal, the appellate court reversed the decision to deny the injunction, and remanded the case to the district court. The corps appealed to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of the United States reversed the appellate court's decision and remanded the case for further proceedings. "The question presented for review in this case is a classic example of a factual dispute the resolution of which implicates substantial agency expertise. * * * Because analysis of the relevant documents requires a high level of technical expertise, we must defer to "the informed discretion of the responsible federal agencies. The Court stated that its role was to "consider whether the decision was based on a consideration of the relevant factors and whether there has been a clear error of judgment." The Court explained that "[e]ven if another decisionmaker might have reached a contrary result, it was surely not a clear error of judgment for the Corps to have found that the new and accurate information in the documents was not significant and that the significant information was not new and accurate. * * * [T]he Corps conducted a reasoned evaluation of the relevant information and reached a decision that, although perhaps disputable, was not arbitrary or capricious."