ELR Citation: 52 ELR 20057
No(s). 20-cv-06787-JSC (N.D. Cal. May 16, 2022) (Corley, J.)

A district court granted summary judgment for environmental groups in a challenge to FWS' 2020 withdrawal of its 2013 proposal to list the bi-state sage-grouse as a threatened species under the ESA, and vacated the withdrawal. The groups argued the withdrawal violated the ESA because the Service's determination that the sage-grouse population was stable was not based on the best scientific and commercial data available, the Service erroneously concluded that conservation measures were sufficiently certain to be effective, and the Service's conclusion regarding the "significant portion of its range" policy was not rationally supported. The court found that FWS failed to explain how it or the study on which it relied squared findings of a low risk of 10-year extirpation with the fairly high extirpation risks of individual population management units (PMUs) and the Service's own assessment that PMU isolation was a significant concern for the population as a whole; that the Service did not adequately support its conclusion that cheatgrass removal was sufficiently certain to be effective as a conservation measure; and that the Service's analysis failed to provide a rational basis for determining that two PMUs were not significant and should be analyzed only separately. It vacated the 2020 withdrawal, reinstated the 2013 proposal, and remanded to FWS to issue a new final listing decision.