WildEarth Guardians v. Haaland
A district court granted summary judgment for an environmental group in a challenge to FWS' decision not to list the Joshua tree as threatened under the ESA. The group challenged the Service's findings that Joshua trees were not threatened under either the five threat factors or throughout a signifi...
Louisiana v. Department of Commerce
A district court granted the state of Louisiana's motion for preliminary injunction to delay the effective date of NMFS' 2019 rule requiring turtle excluder devices on certain skimmer trawl vessels operating in inshore waters. The state argued the effective date was arbitrary and capricious because ...
Northwest Environmental Defense Center v. United States Army Corps of Engineers
A district court granted interim injunctive relief for environmental groups in a lawsuit concerning the Army Corps of Engineers' operation of dams in the Willamette River Basin. The groups sought injunctive relief to remedy the Corps' substantive and procedural ESA violations previously found by the...
Ass'n of Irritated Residents v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
The Ninth Circuit granted in part and denied in part a petition to review EPA's final rule approving California's SIP for meeting the air quality standard for ozone in the San Joaquin Valley. An environmental group argued the SIP's contingency measure was inadequate because it provided only a nomina...
Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Ass'n v. Environmental Protection Agency
The D.C. Circuit denied a challenge to EPA's 2015 rule updating the standards under which the Agency audits wood-burning heaters' compliance with CAA emissions limits. An industry group argued the rule was invalid because, unlike the 1988 rule, it authorized testing at other labs and neither account...