The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision vacating FWS' designation of critical habitat in Alaska for the polar bear, a threatened species, and reinstated the designation. The designation encompasses sea ice, terrestrial denning, and barrier island habitat. Oil and gas associations, several ...

A district court denied a motion to amend its prior ruling vacating FWS' listing of the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species under the ESA. FWS argued that the court should have remanded, rather than vacated, the rule. It claimed that there is a serious possibility that its decision to lis...

The D.C. Circuit upheld FWS' decision to withdraw its proposal to list as endangered the dunes sagebrush lizard in New Mexico and Texas. After FWS proposed to list the lizard, it received updated information about conservation efforts in the two states. Based on this information, which included a vo...

An Illinois appellate court held that the Illinois Pollution Control Board erred when it upheld the state environmental agency's decision to reissue NPDES permits for three large water reclamation plants in the Chicago area. Petitioners argued that the permits fail to include conditions ensuring tha...

The Sixth Circuit held that it has jurisdiction to hear numerous lawsuits challenging EPA's and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' "waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rule. The rule went into effect on August 28, 2015, but on October 9, 2015, the court issued a nationwide stay of the rule pending f...