A district court dismissed for lack of standing a challenge to a 2018 FWS memorandum that withdrew a 2014 memorandum stating the Service's intent to phase out most uses of neonicotinoid pesticides and genetically modified crops (GMCs) within the National Wildlife Refuge System. Environmental groups ...

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...

The Second Circuit vacated and remanded a lower court ruling in a lawsuit concerning the discharge of thousands of gallons of oil from a submarine cable into Long Island Sound. A state public power utility company sought to recover costs for containing and remediating the discharge pursuant to the O...

The Ninth Circuit granted in part one petition to review and denied another petition to review EPA's 2014, 2015, and 2017 decisions to register a pesticide that combines two chemicals—2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) choline salt and glyphosate—to kill weeds on corn, soybean, and cotton fi...

A district court denied environmental groups' motion to preliminarily enjoin a commercial logging and road construction project in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests. The groups argued that the Forest Service violated the ESA by failing to request a species list from FWS and failing to prepare a b...

A district court granted in part summary judgment for nonprofit groups in a suit concerning a logging project in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. One group argued the project violated the Roadless Rule because the Forest Service was surreptitiously planning to construct new roads in an in...