A district court granted summary judgment in favor of NMFS in a lawsuit filed by Massachusetts and New Hampshire challenging the agency's decision to promulgate Frameworks 48 and 50 regulating New England’s Multispecies Fishery under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Th...

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...

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 ...

An Alaska court held that state law impliedly preempts a ballot initiative that would allow a local borough to prohibit the issuance of a permit for large-scale mines that would have a significant adverse impact on salmon-bearing waters. The court rejected the state's claim that the initiative, loca...

The Ninth Circuit held that BLM did not violate NEPA or FLPMA when it approved the expansion of a gold mine near Nevada's Mount Tenabo. Native American tribes claimed that BLM failed to address mitigation measures specific to groundwater in situ, failed to propose new mitigation measures relating to...