Sierra Club v. Salazar, 177 F. Supp. 3d 512

Sierra Club and other preservation groups sued the Keeper of the National Register seeking relief under the APA for Blair Mountain's delisting.
Blair Mountain Battlefield, site of a historic 1921 labor conflict, had been listed and subsequently delisted from the National Register after contested owner-objection counts.
The National Preservation Act and its implementing regulations govern nomination, listing, and the role of owners and state/local authorities in the process.
Disputes centered on which owner/objection list to use (the original 2008 list vs. a recalculated 2009 list) and how objections were counted and verified.
The Keeper ultimately removed Blair Mountain in December 2009 and the plaintiffs challenged that decision as arbitrary and capricious.
The District Court previously found lack of standing; the D.C. Circuit reversed, remanding for further proceedings, triggering the current summary-judgment stage.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether recalculation of owner/objection list violated § 60.6(c) per se	Sierra Club argues recalculation post-nomination violates § 60.6(c) baseline rule.	Keeper contends lists may be mutable under § 60.15(a)(4) and § 60.6(g), and deference applies to interpretations.	Not a per se APA violation; deference applied to Keeper's reasonable reading.
Whether delisting was arbitrary and capricious due to counting objections and the review of the numbers	Sierra Club asserts the count relied on questionable objections and lacked meaningful review.	Keeper contends it reasonably reviewed the data and followed regulations.	Delisting violated the APA; decision deemed arbitrary and remanded for reasoned decisionmaking.
Whether the Keeper failed to provide transparency, deliberation, and evidentiary support	Sierra Club argues the Keeper failed to articulate rationale and relied on conclusory justifications.	Keeper asserts it engaged with the record and followed applicable standards.	Remand required for a rational, well-explained decision with adequate evidentiary basis.

Envtl. Def. Fund, Inc. v. Costle, 657 F.2d 275 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (arbitrary-and-capricious review defers to agency; must be rational and reasoned)
Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n of U.S. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29 (U.S. 1983) (highly deferential, but requires reasoned decisionmaking)
Marsh v. Or. Nat. Res. Council, 490 U.S. 360 (U.S. 1989) (requires reasoned decisionmaking and consideration of alternatives)
N. E. Coal. on Nuclear Pollution v. Nuclear Reg. Comm’n, 727 F.2d 1127 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (reminds courts to consider whether agency can remedy defects on remand)
Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452 (U.S. 1997) (agg. deference for agency interpretations of ambiguous regulations)
Republic Airline Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Transp., 669 F.3d 296 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (requires reasoned analysis when changing course)
State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Kaiser Found. Hosp., No. 12-... (example placeholder) (D.D.C. 2011) (illustrative: rational basis for change in interpretation)
Dist. Hosp. Partners, L.P. v. Burwell, 786 F.3d 46 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (contextual, case-specific reasonableness in agency action)
Jicarilla Apache Nation v. U.S. Dep’t of Interior, 892 F. Supp. 2d 285 (D.D.C. 2012) (agency interpretations of complex regulatory regimes require reasoned basis)
Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., 132 S. Ct. 2163 (U.S. 2012) (limits deference when regulation interpretation is plainly erroneous)