A magistrate judge recommended that environmental groups' motion for summary judgment be denied in a challenge to FWS' authorization of oil and gas drilling on the northern coast of Alaska. The groups argued that FWS' five-year incidental take regulation, accompanying biological opinion, and EA unla...
A district court granted in part and denied in part a mining company's motion to dismiss a lawsuit concerning a proposed open-pit copper-nickel mine in northeastern Minnesota. Environmental groups argued FWS and the Army Corps of Engineers violated the ESA by failing to reinitiate consultation in re...
In 2015, the United Nations Member States, including the United States, unanimously approved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. In a forthcoming book, leading legal scholars examine each of the SDGs and recommend a suite of government, private-sector, and civil society actions to help the United States achieve these goals. This Article is adapted from Chapter 15 of that book, Governing for Sustainability (John C. Dernbach & Scott E. Schang eds., ELI Press, forthcoming 2023).
A district court adopted a magistrate judge's recommendation to deny summary judgment for an environmental group in a lawsuit concerning the Army Corps of Engineers' issuance of a CWA §404 permit for a roadway expansion project in Florida. The group argued the Corps violated the CWA by failing to r...
A district court denied summary judgment for commercial fishermen and a trade group in a lawsuit concerning NMFS' allocation of red grouper fishing privileges in the Gulf of Mexico among recreational and commercial fishermen. Plaintiffs argued that Amendment 53 to the fishery management plan for ree...
The Ninth Circuit, 2-1, affirmed summary judgment for FWS in a lawsuit concerning a petition to amend the Service's 1993 recovery plan for the endangered grizzly bear. An environmental group petitioned FWS, proposing additional recovery areas in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Utah that it argu...
The Ninth Circuit granted in part and denied in part petitions to review EPA's 2019 amended registration of the pesticide sulfoxaflor. Environmental groups alleged that the registration, which unconditionally approved new uses of sulfoxaflor requested by the company that created the pesticide, viola...
The Fifth Circuit denied a petition to review a CWA permit issued by the Army Corps of Engineers authorizing development of a natural gas pipeline and export facility in south Texas. A group of shrimpers and fishermen argued the permit violated the CWA by failing to show that the approved project wa...
The D.C. Circuit vacated a license issued by FERC for operation of a hydroelectric dam on the Susquehanna River in Maryland. The state of Maryland issued a CWA §401(a)(1) certification to the dam's operator in 2018 with conditions. The operator challenged the certification, and the parties reached ...
October 18, 2022, marked the anniversary of the Clean Water Act (CWA), the primary federal law governing pollution control and quality of the waters of the United States. Though the Act has achieved vital successes, whether they can be sustained and how further progress can be made remain fundamental questions. On October 25, 2022, the Environmental Law Institute hosted a panel of experts at its 2022 Annual Policy Forum to evaluate the past 50 years of the CWA, while looking ahead to the next 50 years.