A district court granted environmental groups' motion to preliminarily enjoin the U.S. Forest Service from harvesting damaged trees in the Klamath National Forest following a 2017 fire. The groups argued that the harvesting project violated the National Forest Management Act (NFMA) by failing to com...

The D.C. Circuit vacated a FERC decision concerning a licensee's decommissioning plan with reviewing states for hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River. A Native American tribe challenged FERC's determination that California and Oregon had not waived their water quality certification authority un...

A state appellate court reversed a judgment against a coastal use permit issued by Louisiana's Department of Natural Resources for construction of an oil pipeline. The Department argued that the lower court erred in not deferring to the Department's finding that its coastal use permit (CUP) guidelin...

The court affirms in part and reverses in part the dismissal of the state of Wyoming's claim against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for interfering with the state's "sovereign right" to manage wildlife within its borders, including its right to vaccinate elk from brucellosis in the Nationa...

A district court granted an environmental group's request to enforce the court's previous order that NMFS issue a new catch rule for northern anchovy that complies with the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) and the APA. The group argued that the agency had not complied with the order and requested that the...

A district court denied environmental groups' motion for summary judgment against BLM for lease sales in 2017. The groups argued that BLM failed to fully consider numerous and foreseeable environmental impacts of the leases as required under NEPA. But the court found that BLM's analysis in general t...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court's dismissal of a constitutional challenge to California's 2015 Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). Farming groups argued that the state's LCFS violated the Commerce Clause and the federal structure of the Constitution by regulating extraterritorially. But the...

A state court upheld the North Dakota Department of Health's decision to issue an air quality permit for construction of an oil refinery less than three miles from Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Environmental groups argued that the Department's decision to issue a synthetic minor source permit ra...

The court affirms a district court decision upholding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) grant of "treatment as state" status to a Native American tribe under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Wisconsin, in which the tribe and its reservation are located, challenged EPA's decision to treat ...

The court holds that the U.S. Forest Service violated the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (WSRA) and the Central Idaho Wilderness Act (CIWA) by allowing several permanent hunting and fishing lodges to be built along portions of the Salmon River in Idaho designated as "wild" under the WSRA. The court firs...