A district court denied summary judgment in a lawsuit concerning potential harms to local trout populations from a proposed copper and silver mine in Montana. Environmental groups and a Native American tribe argued that FWS violated the ESA by using a habitat surrogate to establish the mine's author...

The Fourth Circuit granted a motion to stay FWS' issuance of a biological opinion and incidental take statement for a proposed 300-mile natural gas pipeline running through Virginia and West Virginia, and to hold in abeyance litigation concerning authorization for the pipeline in order to allow FWS ...

A district court preliminarily enjoined BLM from implementing its 2019 amendments to plans for oil and gas permitting and licensing on greater sage-grouse habitat in seven states. Environmental groups argued that the six EISs that BLM issued to amend the plans violated NEPA by failing to consider re...

In an unpublished opinion, the Ninth Circuit reversed in part and affirmed in part a summary judgment in favor of NMFS and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a challenge against NMFS' 2014 opinions that reversed its decades-long approach to classifying water diversions and hydroelectric dams on the...

A district court dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Hawaiian resident alleging that an early start to a county construction project harmed two endangered species—the Hawaiian hawk and Hawaiian hoary bat—in violation of the ESA. The resident argued that the county violated its EIS by allowing const...

A district court vacated in part and remanded in part FWS' 2014 determination to remove the Rio Grande cutthroat trout from the ESA list of endangered and threatened wildlife. An environmental group argued that FWS failed to adequately explain why it used different methodologies in its 2008 and 2014...

A district court granted summary judgment to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a challenge to the Corps' approval of construction of a terminal groin to mitigate shoreline erosion in a North Carolina town. A conservation group first argued that the third-party contractor who submitted the permit a...

A district court preliminarily enjoined the U.S. Forest Service from allowing any timber harvesting, road construction, or other ground-disturbing activities associated with the Service's authorization of a timber sale in Tongass National Forest. Environmental groups, whose members use areas that wo...