Alaska Community Action on Toxics v. Hartig, 321 P.3d 360

Alaska Railroad sought a two-year permit (effective June 9, 2010) from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to apply herbicides along track right-of-way after federal safety concerns about vegetation; DEC granted Permit #10-SOL-01 following public notice and issued a Decision Document.
ACAT, Alaska Survival, and Cook Inletkeeper challenged the permit administratively, seeking an adjudicatory hearing and a stay; DEC granted some procedural relief, found Cook Inletkeeper lacked standing, and limited proceedings to a hybrid record hearing and an adjudicatory hearing.
ACAT and Alaska Survival voluntarily dismissed their factual (adjudicatory) claims to expedite judicial review of legal issues; DEC compiled and certified the administrative record and assessed costs against ACAT and Alaska Survival, after reducing the original charge.
An administrative law judge and the Commissioner upheld DEC’s permit decision and the assessment of record costs; the superior court affirmed, denying attorney’s fees to the agency and allocating record costs between the two groups.
On appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court, most challenges to the permit were held moot because the two-year permit expired and DEC’s pesticide permitting regulations were substantially revised (including an integrated pest management option), but the Court reviewed and affirmed the record-cost decision.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Mootness of permit challenges	Rescission required; harms ongoing; review warranted	Permit expired and regulatory changes render relief ineffective	Permit challenges are moot; court dismissed them
Public-interest exception to mootness	Exception applies because issues repeat and concern water/ due process	Exception inapplicable: factual/regulatory context unlikely to repeat	Exception rejected: only second prong satisfied; first and third not met
Assessment of administrative-record costs	Costs were arbitrary, inefficient, and should be waived for public-interest litigants	Costs authorized by 18 AAC 15.237; DEC reasonably compiled record and reduced fees	Fee assessment was not arbitrary or an abuse of discretion; affirmed
Constitutional/equal protection and due process claims re costs	Charging litigants for record compilation discriminates and denies due process	Claims were waived or inadequately briefed below; DEC followed its regs	Claims waived/abandoned; Court declined to reach merits

Ahtna Tene Nene v. State, Dep’t of Fish & Game, 288 P.3d 452 (Alaska 2012) (mootness and public-interest exception analysis when challenged regulation was amended)
Copeland v. Ballard, 210 P.3d 1197 (Alaska 2009) (application of the public-interest exception to mootness for environmental and procedural-due-process issues)
State, Dep’t of Natural Res. v. Greenpeace, Inc., 96 P.3d 1056 (Alaska 2004) (mootness in context of expired permits)
Alaska Exch. Carriers Ass’n v. Regulatory Comm’n of Alaska, 202 P.3d 458 (Alaska 2009) (standards for review of mootness and agency decisions)