The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for BLM in a challenge to its 2017 offer and sale of oil and gas leases in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Environmental groups argued that BLM violated NEPA by failing to prepare an EA or EIS for the lease sale and failing to take a hard look at it...
The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and remanded in part a district court order remanding to FWS several issues concerning its 2017 rule removing ESA protections for the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear population. The district court held that FWS failed to adequately consider the impact of delisting...
The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for BLM in a challenge to the agency's "geld and release" plan for wild horses in northeastern Nevada. An animal rights group argued that BLM violated NEPA by failing to prepare an EIS for the plan because five of the Act's intensity factors demonstrated t...
The D.C. Circuit invalidated FERC's longstanding practice of issuing tolling orders to extend the statutory period for acting on requests for rehearing of its orders, in a lawsuit concerning the Commission's granting of a certificate of public convenience and necessity to a natural gas pipeline in P...
The U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service raises important questions about the scope of the Endangered Species Act’s (ESA’s) protections for critical habitat. Foremost among them is a question one might think was long settled: what is “habitat”? In a short ruling, the Weyerhaeuser Court opined that “critical habitat” must first be “habitat,” but it did not attempt to define exactly what habitat is or how much deference the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should get on what is both a biological and policy question.
A district court denied a motion to preliminarily enjoin grizzly bear killings in connection with a 2019 biological opinion and incidental take statement issued by FWS that allow for their lethal removal in Bridger-Teton National Forest as a result of conflict with livestock. Conservation groups arg...
A district court vacated an incidental take permit issued by FWS for a transmission line project on a historic section of the Oregon and California Trail in Nebraska. Companies and conservation groups argued that FWS' decision to issue the permit, which allowed for the incidental taking of American ...
A district court vacated a timber harvesting project in Tongass National Forest after previously ruling that the Forest Service violated NEPA, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, and the National Forest Management Act when it authorized the project. Both the plaintiff environmental ...
The Tenth Circuit upheld the Forest Service's approval of two forest-thinning projects in the Santa Fe National Forest. Environmental groups and individuals argued the Service violated NEPA by failing to adequately consider the projects' effects on inventoried roadless areas and their cumulative imp...