The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals partly sided with the City of Burien in its challenge against the FAA's approval of a flight procedure that routes low-flying turboprop planes westward over Burien after takeoff from Seattle-Tacoma Airport. The court found that the FAA acted arbitrarily and capriciously by failing to consider all reasonably foreseeable future actions at Sea-Tac when evaluating whether the procedure's cumulative environmental and noise impacts required a full environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The FAA had attempted to exempt the procedure from such review by classifying it as a 'categorical exclusion,' but the court determined that the agency's cumulative impacts analysis was incomplete.Open full document
Notes
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals memorandum addresses the City of Burien’s challenge to the FAA’s approval of a procedure for turning southbound turboprops to the west in certain wind conditions at Sea-Tac Airport. The court agreed in part with Burien, finding the FAA acted arbitrarily and capriciously by failing to consider all reasonably foreseeable future actions at Sea-Tac in its cumulative impacts analysis under NEPA. The case centers on whether the FAA properly applied a categorical exclusion (CATEX) to avoid full environmental review of the procedure.