Cite as: 523 U. S. 726 (1998)
Syllabus
Nor would delaying review cause the Sierra Club significant practical harm. Given the procedural requirements the Service must observe before it can permit logging, the Sierra Club need not bring its challenge now, but may await a later time when harm is more imminent and certain. Cf. Abbott Laboratories, 387 U. S., at 152-154. Nor has the Sierra Club pointed to any other way in which the Plan could now force it to modify its behavior to avoid future adverse consequences, as, for example, agency regulations can sometimes force immediate compliance through fear of future sanctions. Cf., e. g., id., at 152-153. Second, court review now could interfere with the system that Congress specified for the Forest Service to reach logging decisions. From that agency's perspective, immediate review could hinder its efforts to refine its policies through revision of the Plan or application of the Plan in practice. Cf., e. g., id., at 149. Here, the possibility that further consideration will actually occur before the Plan is implemented is real, not theoretical. Third, the courts would benefit from further factual development of the issues. See Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Environmental Study Group, Inc., 438 U. S. 59, 82. Review now would require time-consuming consideration of the details of an elaborate, technically based Plan, which predicts consequences that may affect many different parcels of land in a variety of ways, and which effects themselves may change over time. That review would have to take place without benefit of the focus that particular logging proposals could provide. And, depending upon the agency's future actions to revise the Plan or modify the expected implementation methods, review now may turn out to have been unnecessary. See FTC v. Standard Oil Co. of Cal., 449 U. S. 232, 242. Finally, Congress has not specifically provided for preimplementation judicial review of such plans, unlike certain agency rules, cf., e. g., Lujan v. National Wildlife Federation, 497 U. S. 871, 891, and forest plans are unlike environmental impact statements prepared pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 because claims involving such statements can never get any riper. Pp. 732-737.
(b) The Court cannot consider the Sierra Club's argument that the Plan will hurt it immediately in many ways not yet mentioned. That argument makes its first appearance in this Court in the briefs on the merits and is, therefore, not fairly presented. Pp. 738-739.
105 F. 3d 248, vacated and remanded.
Breyer, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Malcolm L. Stewart argued the cause for the federal respondents in support of petitioner, under this Court's Rule
727
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