A district court held that OSM violated NEPA when it approved a mining plan amendment that would expand a coal mine in Montana, and ordered the agency to prepare an updated EA within 240 days. Specifically, the court held that OSM violated NEPA's public participation and notice provisions when it fa...

The Eleventh Circuit denied the coal mining industry's petitions for review of a Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) regulation aimed at reducing black lung disease and other respiratory illnesses in miners. The petitioners challenged MSHA's authority to issue the rule under the Federal Min...

A district court ordered NMFS to take a "hard look" at the environmental impacts of its definition of "fishery" with regard to the Atlantic Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish fishery management plan (FMP) and whether river herring and shad should be included in the FMP. In 2014, the Mid-Atlantic Fisher...

A district court ordered the state of Idaho to propose a plan to protect the Canada lynx, a threatened species, from being inadvertently captured or killed in northern Idaho due to traps set by trappers intending to lure other species. The state does not restrict how many traps or snares a licensed ...

A district court dismissed recreational fishing groups' lawsuit against NMFS concerning its management of the red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico. The groups challenged the enactment of Amendment 40 to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council’s Reef Fish Fishery Management Plan and an a...

The D.C. Circuit dismissed recreational fishing groups' lawsuit against NMFS for failing to manage stocks of river herring and shad in the Atlantic Ocean from New York to North Carolina. In 2012, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council began developing Amendment 15 to the Mackerel, Squid, and Bu...