The Ninth Circuit upheld the U.S. Forest Service's ban on rock climbing on Cave Rock, a large rock formation on the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe, Nevada. While the formation holds religious and cultural significance to a Native American tribe, the ban had a secular purpose and had no impermissible re...

The Second Circuit affirmed an individual's conviction and sentence for knowingly importing exotic birds, African black sparrowhawks, into the United States in violation of the Wild Bird Conservation Act and for making false statements to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with regard to that import...

The Eleventh Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision allowing a chicken plant owner's equal protection claims against various state and local officials to go forward. The owner filed a §1983 suit against the officials on the theory that they violated the owner's constitutional righ...

The court upholds the denial of a church's motion for a preliminary restraining order to prevent the relocation of a cemetery in conjunction with plans to renovate Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Eminent domain does not constitute a "land use" regulation subject to the Religious Land Use and...

The Federal Circuit affirmed the lower court’s judgment that no taking occurred on a Pennsylvania family farm where a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency consent decree required appellant-farmer to reestablish wetlands on a portion of the farm. The farm is an integrated whole despite the exis...

The Ninth Circuit vacated as moot a dispute concerning the federal government's policy for listing killer whales under the Endangered Species Act. An environmental group filed suit after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)-Fisheries denied its petition to list the Southern Res...

A district court dismissed environmental groups' claim that the Department of Homeland Security's waiver of various federal environmental laws with respect to the construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border under the REAL ID Act of 2005 was unconstitutional. The court lacks the power to in...

A district court granted a motion to dismiss Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, and New Jersey Spill Compensation and Control Act claims filed against the state environmental agency and its commissioner in connection ...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court judgment ordering the forfeiture of 64,695 pounds of shark fins under the Shark Finning Prohibition Act. Neither the statute nor its implementing regulations provided fair notice that the vessel, which purchased the fins at sea from other vessels, would be co...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of state takings claims arising out of a state ban on open-pit mining for gold or silver by the cyanide heap leaching process. The plaintiffs, who prior to the ban had acquired leases of Montana state property for the purpose of mining gold, silver, and other t...