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...
The First Circuit amended a previous ruling vacating an air permit issued by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MDEP) for a proposed natural gas compressor station that is part of a pipeline connecting the northeastern United States and Canada. The court had found that MDEP fa...
The Third Circuit granted a petition to review EPA's approval of Pennsylvania's proposed NAAQS for ozone. An environmental group argued the standards wrongly claimed to reduce pollution output at the state's most advanced coal-burning power plants while "simply rubberstamping an average of current p...
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 D.C. Circuit denied in part and dismissed in part a petition to review EPA's guidance concerning the process of certifying cellulosic biofuel. A biofuel company argued the guidance was a legislative rule that was invalidly promulgated without notice and comment, conflicted with the regulation it...
A district court granted states' motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit concerning EPA's duty to limit air pollution drifting from upwind states into northeastern states. Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York argued that EPA failed to fulfill a nondiscretionary duty under ...