Litigation Procedure Title VI. The plaintiff, a white male, alleged that FHWA and TDOT had violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits intentional discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin by recipients of federal funding. The court held that, because the plaintiff was not a member of a minority group, he lacked standing to bring a Title VI claim. The plaintiff argued that, even if he could not directly bring a Title VI claim, he could sue FHWA under the Administrative Procedure Act for violating its Title VI regulations. The court rejected this argument as well, holding that “[b]ecause Bullwinkel cannot claim indirectly what he is barred from claiming directly, these indirect claims are likewise dismissed.” Executive Order 12,898. The plaintiff alleged that FHWA had violated Executive Order 12,898, which requires federal agencies to identify and address disproportionately high and adverse effects of their actions on low-income and minority populations. The court held that any legal claims based on the Executive Order are barred by the express language of the order, which states that it “shall not be construed to create any right to judicial review involving the compliance or noncompliance of the United States, its agencies, its officers, or any other person.” The plaintiff also argued that his environmental justice claims were actually based on NEPA; the court rejected this argument as well: “The Court … disagrees with Plaintiff that the [Executive] Order can be invoked as a reason for establishing a NEPA violation. If he is to establish a violation of NEPA, it must be done some way other than indirectly through reference to an unenforceable executive order. Thus, any claim relying directly or indirectly on Executive Order 12,898 in Count 8 is hereby dismissed ….”

NEPA Connected Action/Segmentation. The plaintiff claimed that FHWA had violated NEPA by failing to include other elements of the Megasite development within the scope of its NEPA review for the interchange project, including a solar energy farm and transmission line that had been approved by the U.S. Department of Energy. The court found that the same claim had previously been raised in the same lawsuit, as part of the plaintiff’s claim against USDOE, and the court had ruled against the plaintiff on that claim. The court held that the earlier ruling “is equally applicable here and plainly warrants dismissal of the same Count against the FHWA Defendants.” Therefore, the court dismissed the connected-action claim.