Cottonwood Environmental Law Center; v. U.S. SHEEP EXPERIMENT STATION and AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH SERVICE

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
COTTONWOOD ENVIRONMENTAL
LAW CENTER; et al.,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
U.S. SHEEP EXPERIMENT STATION
and AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH
SERVICE,
Defendants-Appellees.
No. 18-35520
D.C. No. 9:17-cv-00155-DLC
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Montana
Dana L. Christensen, Chief Judge, Presiding
Submitted February 8, 2019**
Seattle, Washington
FILED
FEB 13 2019
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

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Before: IKUTA and CHRISTEN, Circuit Judges, and FREUDENTHAL,***
District Judge.
Cottonwood Environmental Law Center (Cottonwood) appeals the district
court’s order dismissing its motion for a preliminary injunction for lack of
jurisdiction.
The inaction of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in response to
Cottonwood’s demand that it prepare a supplemental Environmental Impact
Statement (EIS) did not constitute “agency action unlawfully withheld or
unreasonably delayed” under 5 U.S.C. § 706(1), because the ARS had no discrete
statutory duty to prepare a supplemental EIS in the period before it issued a final
Record of Decision, see Norton v. S. Utah Wilderness All., 542 U.S. 55, 64 (2004).
Because the ARS’s actions were not subject to judicial review under the APA, the
district court lacked jurisdiction to hear Cottonwood’s claims. Nippon Miniature
Bearing Corp. v. Weise, 230 F.3d 1131, 1139 (9th Cir. 2000). Further,
Cottonwood’s claims were not ripe for judicial review because “judicial
intervention would inappropriately interfere with further administrative action” in
this case and because “the courts would benefit from further factual development
of the issues.” See Ohio Forestry Ass’n v. Sierra Club, 523 U.S. 726, 733 (1998).
*** The Honorable Nancy D. Freudenthal, United States District Judge for
the District of Wyoming, sitting by designation.
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Because “there is no mandatory sequencing of jurisdictional issues” and this
court can dispose of threshold issues in any order before reaching the merits, see
Sinochem Int’l Co. v. Malaysia Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S. 422, 431 (2007)
(internal quotation marks omitted), we do not reach the parties’ arguments
regarding mootness and redressability.
AFFIRMED.
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