Memorandum Opinion and Order - US District Court - Northern ...

those environmental consequences.” S. La. Envtl. Council, Inc., 629 F.2d at 1011. “In otherwords, the agency is free to take the most environmentally costly course of action or alternative,so long as the environmental impact is fully identified in the EIS and the agency determines that‘other values’ outweigh the impact on the environment.” Citizens Concerned About Jet Noise v.Dalton, 48 F. Supp. 2d 582, 589 (E.D. Va. 1999).Here, this Court is persuaded that Defendants conducted an appropriate informalweighing of the merits and drawbacks of the RBTI consistent with Defendants’ reasonably statedpurpose and need. The AR repeatedly indicates that the thrust of the RBTI was to provideintegrated airspace to maximize quality training time and to minimize unproductive transit time.Plaintiffs have not established that Defendants’ proposed action was primarily driven byeconomic considerations or that Defendants painted a picture of unduly optimistic economicbenefits while simultaneously minimizing the potential adverse environmental consequences.Thus, this Court is convinced that a formal cost/benefit analysis was not required.Because Defendants were not required to prepare a formal cost/benefit analysis,Defendants were not required to assign specific dollar values to the expected benefits of theRBTI. Rather, Defendants were required to balance the favorable and adverse effects of theagency action, and this Court finds that Defendants did so. A review of the AR and FEISindicates that Defendants conducted a reasonably thorough discussion of the significant aspectsof the environmental and economic factors of the RBTI and that Defendants did not justify theirdecision based on economic considerations. Nothing more was required.In addition, because Defendants were entitled to rely on their own experts, so long as theexperts’ decisions were not arbitrary and capricious, “the mere presence of contradictory35