A district court dismissed several claims a group of cattle ranchers filed against USDA and DOI concerning actions taken to protect the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse, an endangered species. Following the listing of the species in 2014, the U.S. Forest Service proposed to erect a five-foot pipe fen...
A district court, on motions for reconsideration and clarification of a prior remand order, vacated and remanded DOI's record of decision (ROD), EIS, and biological opinion (BiOp) concerning a large wind energy project in Nevada. In the prior remand court, the court held that DOI failed to fully exp...
The Ninth Circuit held that California's commercial fishing fees for nonresidents violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the U.S. Constitution. California's commercial fishing license fees are significantly higher for out-of-state fishers than for residents. For example, California residen...
A district court upheld FWS' decision to terminate the southern sea otter translocation program off the coast of California. Due to the threatened species' vulnerability to extinction from oil spills, environmental contamination, disease, shooting, and entanglement in fishing gear, FWS began the tra...
The Fifth Circuit reversed an oil company's convictions for violating the CAA and Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) in connection with its wastewater treatment system at its Corpus Christi refinery. The company was convicted for knowingly operating two uncovered tanks as oil-water separators without ...
A district court vacated an FWS rule listing the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species under the ESA. ESA §4(b) requires FWS to take into account conservation efforts being made by any state before making a listing decision. In 2003, to encourage the development of conservation agreements ...
The D.C. Circuit held that USDA's failure to apply general animal welfare standards to birds does not violate the APA. In 2004, USDA announced that it intended to apply the protections of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) to birds. Although the Agency has taken steps to craft avian-specific animal welfar...
A district court held that FWS violated NEPA when it issued a rule increasing from five years to 30 years the maximum duration of programmatic permits for wind energy developers to take bald and golden eagles. FWS issued the rule in hopes of promoting renewable energy projects. But when it issued th...
The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision dismissing an environmental group's ESA lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service concerning the agency's approval of suction dredge mining projects in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. Because the Forest provides designated critical habitat fo...
The Ninth Circuit upheld California's "shark fin law", which bans the possession, sale, and distribution of shark fins within the state. An association claimed that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act preempts the law. But they failed to identify any actual conflict between ...