A district court dismissed a challenge to the Bureau of Reclamation's alleged ongoing, unpermitted take of bull trout through operation of an irrigation project near Glacier National Park. An environmental group argued that the Bureau's water control and delivery structures in the St. Mary River dra...
A district court granted in part and denied in part advocacy and industry groups' motion for summary judgment in a challenge to FDA's decision to allow a company to create and farm genetically engineered salmon. The groups argued that FDA violated NEPA by failing to take a sufficiently "hard look" a...
State wildlife agencies commonly claim they are entitled to manage wildlife under the public trust doctrine (PTD). This assertion is frequently made in judicial proceedings, with state requests that their managerial authority be given due force throughout state, private, federal, and even tribal lands. One might conclude that a rich body of PTD practices and policies exists for wildlife; in reality, the PTD in state wildlife management proves to be ephemeral.
A district court dismissed a challenge to FWS' designation of critical habitat for the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse. Southwestern ranchers argued that the Service underestimated the designation's economic impacts by not considering costs beyond the designation itself, in violation of the ESA. The...
A district court remanded to NMFS for a third time in a decades-long lawsuit concerning the Service's incidental take statement (ITS) assessing the impact of dredge fishing on loggerhead sea turtles in the Atlantic. A conservation group argued that the Service's revised ITS responding to the court's...
The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for NMFS in a challenge to the Service's rule imposing a quota system for a Pacific non-whiting groundwater fishery that limited the total allowable catch and prohibited any one entity from controlling more than 2.7% of the outstanding quota share. The fis...
A district court granted summary judgment for conservation groups in a lawsuit alleging that the Army Corps of Engineers' continued operation and maintenance of a flood control project in the Pacific Northwest violated the ESA. The groups argued the Corps was violating §7(a)(2) by operating and mai...
A district court vacated DOI's 2017 policy allowing incidental takings and killings of migratory birds. Environmental groups and states challenged the policy, arguing that it violated the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) by interpreting the Act as only prohibiting takes or kills resulting from activ...
A district court denied a motion to dismiss or stay a challenge to the Bureau of Reclamation's alleged ongoing, unpermitted take of bull trout near Glacier National Park. An environmental group argued the Bureau's water control and delivery structures that were part of its irrigation project near th...
The Fifth Circuit affirmed, 2-1, a lower court ruling in favor of fishermen's challenge to NMFS regulations regarding offshore aquaculture in federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The fishermen argued that the regulations were invalid because they fell outside the agency's authority to regulate fish...