Defenders of Wildlife v. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement
A district court held that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement (BOEMRE) did not violate NEPA or the ESA when it accepted over 300 bids for oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon disaster. An environmental group argued that the ag...
Conservancy of Southwest Florida v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
The Eleventh Circuit upheld FWS' decision denying environmental groups' petitions to designate critical habitat for the Florida panther under the ESA. The Secretary of the Interior listed the Florida panther as an endangered species in 1967—more than a decade before the 1978 amendments required a ...
Bair v. Caltrans,
A district court ordered the California Department of Transportation to revise its EA for a proposal to widen a highway through a state park home to ancient redwoods as well as an abundance of wildlife, including the marbled murrelet and spotted owl. There are a number of discrepancies and omiss...
Conservancy of Southwest Florida v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
The Eleventh Circuit upheld FWS' denial of petitions to designate critical habitat for the Florida panther under the ESA. Environmental groups claimed that the denial of their petitions was arbitrary and capricious under the APA. But neither the ESA nor the regulations cited by the groups provid...
North Carolina Wildlife Federation v. North Carolina Department of Transportation
The Fourth Circuit held that the Federal Highway Administration and the North Carolina Department of Transportation violated NEPA when they approved the construction of a 20-mile toll road. In calculating the "no-build" baseline as part of their alternatives analysis, the agencies relied on data...
Scarborough Citizens Protecting Resources v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
The First Circuit upheld the dismissal of a citizen group's lawsuit against the FWS in a suit concerning Maine's conveyance of easements on a recreational trail purchased with federal funds. The Wildlife Restoration Act, enacted in 1937, authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to disburse money...