A district court, in a 279-page opinion, held that NOAA-Fisheries' 2009 biological opinion (BiOp) and reasonable and prudent alternative (RPA) addressing Central Valley Project and State Water Project impacts on Chinook salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon, and Southern Resident killer whales are a...

The Seventh Circuit denied various states' motion to issue a preliminary injunction compelling the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to prevent the emigration of invasive silver and bighead carp through the Chicago Area Waterway System into Lake Michigan. The states presented sufficient evidence to d...

The D.C. Circuit vacated the National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS') methodology for tracking bycatch in the fisheries off the Northeastern coast of the United States. The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, as amended by the Sustainable Fisheries Act, requires the NMF...

The Ninth Circuit held that a seafood processor association may not intervene in environmental groups' lawsuit challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service's program to preserve groundfish species off the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington. A lower court denied the association's m...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the denial of animal rights groups' motion to preliminarily enjoin DOI from rounding up, destroying, or auctioning off wild horses and burros in the Twin Peaks Herd Management Area on the California-Nevada border. The groups claimed that the large-scale removal of horses...

A West Virginia court overturned a city's ordinance banning the hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus shale. The city, characterizing the hydraulic fracturing process as a nuisance, argued that it has the authority to enact and enforce the ordinance pursuant to the rights given to the city by the "Home ...

A district court denied an energy company's motion to dismiss residents' tort law claims against it for damages stemming from its operation of natural gas compression stations. The residents alleged that the compressor stations cause harmful levels of noise pollution and emit large amounts of methan...

A district court vacated two internal DOI guidance documents that address and limit the use of §390 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which establishes a "rebuttable presumption" that a categorical exclusion from review under NEPA would apply to certain oil and gas development activities on federal...

The Fourth Circuit denied a petition challenging a DOE rule setting forth energy conservation standards for small electric motors. The motors covered by the rule are electric induction motors ranging in power output from 0.25 to 3 horsepower. In promulgating the rule, the DOE invoked its authori...

A California appellate court reversed a lower court decision certifying residents' class action lawsuit against the state wildlife agency in connection with efforts to eradicate an invasive species of fish, the northern pike, from a lake and its tributaries. The residents argued that the agency's ef...