The Ninth Circuit held that the Bureau of Reclamation should have consulted with FWS or NMFS on impacts to the threatened delta smelt prior to renewing long-term water contracts pertaining to California's Central Valley Project. ESA §7(a)(2) requires such consultation so long as the agency has “s...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision invalidating a 2003 USDA regulation that temporarily exempted Alaska's Tongass National Forest from the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. USDA clearly acknowledged that its 2003 record of decision, which excluded the Tongass from the Roadless Rul...

A district court held that fee restrictions set forth in the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (REA) do not apply to private, third-party concessionaires who operate recreation areas within the National Forests. Nonprofit groups challenged the U.S. Forest Service’s issuance of several speci...

A district court, in a memorandum opinion, dismissed environmental groups' lawsuit against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for APA, NEPA, and ESA violations in connection with two lease sales in the area where the Deepwater Horizon spill ...

A district court upheld two court-approved settlement agreements between environmental advocacy groups and the FWS in a multi-district litigation that require the agency to determine by certain deadlines whether to list 251 species as endangered or threatened under the ESA or find that listing these...