4th Cir. Orders Lower Court to Conduct Additional Hearings on Environmental Challenge to North Carolina Outer Banks Transportation Project

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently reviewed the lower court’s rejection of a series of challenges to an important North Carolina highway transportation project that will repair and restore access to the North Carolina Outer Banks. The case is Defenders of Wildlife, et al., v. North Carolina Department of Transportation, et al., decided August 6, 2014.

Following its review of a long and complex administrative record, the Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) challenge to the complicated project, but ordered to court to conduct additional inquiries into the defendants’ argument that the “joint planning exception” known as a “Section 4(f)” exception, was warranted. The “Section 4(f) exception” is a shorthand reference to a provision of the transportation laws administered by the Federal Highway Administration that affect the use of federal transportation funds in a designated wildlife area.

The Court of Appeals acknowledged that additional hearings may require the lower court to conduct “an odyssey into the facts of the condemnation proceedings [that preceded the refuge designation] and pertinent North Carolina property law”, and it provided a roadmap for this inquiry. The opinion of the Court of Appeals is a very useful explication of these complicated laws and policies.