ELR Citation: 55 ELR 20030
No(s). 23‐00306 MWJS‐WRP (D. Haw. Mar 6, 2025) (Smith, J.)

A district court granted in part and denied in part summary judgment for an environmental group in a challenge to NMFS' denial of the group's petition to promulgate ESA §4(d) regulations for 20 coral species. The group had petitioned NMFS in response to the Service's inaction on its own findings in 2014 that the species were at rising risk of extinction primarily due to climate change. NMFS denied the petition, and the group sued, arguing the denial was arbitrary and capricious. The court found NMFS had offered no reasoned explanation for declining to adopt regulations to protect the threatened coral species from climate change, and had offered no reasoned explanation for declining to adopt regulations addressing local threats for one set of threatened species. Because NMFS failed to demonstrate that it reached these conclusions through reasoned decisionmaking, the court could not affirm the conclusions. It granted in part and denied in part summary judgment for the group and remanded to NMFS for further consideration of the group's petition.