Save Our Cumberland Mountains v. Kempthorne

OPINION

SUTTON, Circuit Judge.

Four environmental groups filed this action contending that the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation, an office of the Department of the Interior, abused its discretion (1) in conducting an environmental' assessment of an application by the National Coal Corporation to mine roughly 1,100 acres in the Cumberland River watershed of northeastern Tennessee and (2) in issuing a finding of no significant environmental impact with respect to the application. Among other things, plaintiffs argued that the agency’s environmental assessment did not take a sufficiently…