California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday asked the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to review a 2-to-1 decision of a panel of that court in November that rejected his office’s challenge of the approval given to the Eastgate Air Cargo facility project, a 660,000-square-foot logistics center to be built on the grounds of San Bernardino International Airport.
Two months ago, with Ninth Circuit Judge Johnnie Rawlinson dissenting, her Ninth Circuit colleagues Eugene Siler and Patrick Bumatay entered a prevailing opinion that former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and a group of environmentalists did not make a convincing showing that the Federal Aviation Administration failed to meet its obligation to give adequate consideration to the environmental impacts of the freight-handling and distribution operation before approving it, and gave inadequate consideration to the overall and cumulative effect of emissions from vehicles and machinery at the proposed site on nearby residences, schools and other places where individuals sensitive to that pollution live or frequent.
Bonta, as Becerra’s successor, requested that the full appellate court take up the matter because, he said, judges Siler’s and Bumatay’s “decision allowing an agency to rest the project’s approval on a flawed environmental analysis where impacts are highly uncertain and controversial conflicts with Ninth Circuit and Supreme Court precedents.”