9th Cir.;
14-71180

The court of appeals denied a petition for review of an order of the Federal Aviation Administration. The court held that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not abuse its discretion in concluding that a proposed airport expansion would not significantly impact air quality.

The Port of Portland developed a plan for expansion of Hillsboro Airport (HIO), a general aviation airport near Portland, Oregon. The project included the addition of a third runway, which would serve smaller, single-engine propeller planes and would allow such planes to be separated from larger propeller planes and jet aircraft. The Port produced an environmental assessment (EA) for the project and, in 2010, the FAA issued a finding of no significant impact (FONSI). The court of appeals granted in part opponents' petition for review and remanded for further consideration, finding the EA was inadequate because the FAA could not “point to any documents in the record that actually discussed the impact of a third runway on aviation demand at HIO.” On remand, the Port produced a supplemental environmental assessment (SEA), which included three different forecasts for demand at HIO, including a “remand forecast,” which relied on pilot surveys to determine whether and by how much pilots with planes based at HIO and other airports around Portland would increase their operations at HIO due to the new runway, the associated reduced delays at peak times, and the increased safety arising from separating single-engine propeller planes from larger planes. The survey also included the pilots' estimates of associated reduced delays at peak times and increased safety arising from separating single-engine propeller planes from larger planes. The forecasts predicted at most a small increase in air traffic operations due to the new runway and concluded that pollution generated by any increased traffic would be negligible.