The Federal Circuit reversed a Court of Federal Claims ruling that the U.S. government was liable for flooding private properties when it raised the water level of a lake in Mississippi to prevent a nearby levee from breaching. Landowners argued that raising the water level of the lake, which subseq...

A district court ruled unconstitutional provisions of a North Carolina statute that restricted undercover investigations of facilities and farms where animal testing or processing takes place. Nonprofit groups argued that provisions of the statute violated the First Amendment because they failed the...

The D.C. Circuit upheld FWS' withdrawal of prior findings for elephant trophy hunting in southern Africa. Conservation groups argued that FWS violated the APA by withdrawing its prior findings without providing notice and comment. The court found that a notice-and-comment period was not required for...

A district court denied a Native American tribe's request to lift a stay in a lawsuit against the Bureau of Reclamation seeking to protect endangered coho salmon from the impacts of an irrigation project in the Klamath River Basin. The tribe asserted that the Bureau failed to comply with the terms o...

The Fifth Circuit dismissed a challenge to FWS' constitutional authority to regulate activities affecting the Bone Cave harvestman, a small arachnid known to live only in caves in central Texas that is currently listed as endangered under the ESA. A county and an individual, intervening plaintiffs i...

A district court denied FWS' and NMFS' motion to dismiss a challenge to the agencies' issuance of rules that revised key requirements of the ESA's implementing regulations. States and conservation groups argued that the agencies exceeded their statutory authority in issuing the rules in violation of...

A district court dismissed for lack of standing a challenge to FWS' and NMFS' issuance of rules that revised key requirements of ESA's implementing regulations. Conservation groups argued that the rules failed to provide an adequate EIS in violation of NEPA, failed to provide adequate notice and com...