The Massachusetts Supreme Court affirmed a lower court's denial of an oil and gas company's motion to dismiss a civil enforcement action brought by the Massachusetts attorney general (AG) based on the company's communications with investors and consumers concerning the impact of climate change. The ...

A district court granted an environmental group's motion to preliminarily enjoin the Forest Service and FWS from moving forward with a logging and road building project in the Kootenai National Forest. The group argued the agencies violated the ESA by failing to conduct a lawful cumulative effects a...

A district court granted FWS' motion for voluntary remand in a challenge to its 2020 decision to withdraw a 2013 proposed rule to list the wolverine as a threatened distinct population segment (DPS) in the contiguous United States under the ESA. Environmental groups argued the withdrawal was based o...

A district court granted a developer's motion to dismiss a challenge to the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to issue a CWA §404 permit for a proposed copper mine project in the Santa Rita Mountains. Environmental groups and Native American tribes argued that the Corps violated the CWA and NEPA wh...

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 d...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the National Park Service (NPS) in a challenge to the Service's authority to prohibit commercial herring fishing in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA). A fishing group argued that NPS lacked authority under the GGNRA Act to enforce the co...

The Tenth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a lawsuit concerning a long-running water dispute between an Indian tribe and a private landowner in Utah. The tribe sued the landowner in tribal court, arguing the landowner had been diverting the tribe's water for years. The tribal court held it had subject ...

The Tenth Circuit affirmed dismissal of ranching groups' challenge to FWS' designation of critical habitat for the endangered New Mexico meadow jumping mouse. The groups argued FWS' methodology for analyzing economic impacts of the designation violated the ESA and court precedent, that the Service f...

A district court granted in part and denied in part conservation groups' motion for summary judgment in a challenge to NMFS' 2019 decision not to list the alewife and blueback herring as threatened under the ESA. The groups argued that NMFS failed to adequately account for climate change-related har...