The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision rejecting claims that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) violated the ESA when it placed commercial fishing restrictions on sub-regions of the Pacific Ocean inhabited by the endangered western distinct population segment of Stellar sea lion...

The Seventh Circuit upheld a dredge and fill permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a highway project that crosses wetlands in Indiana. The Corps adequately considered practicable alternatives when it issued the permit. Although the Corps has an independent responsibility to enforce t...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision dismissing a conservation group's CWA citizen suit alleging that a scrap metal company violated California's general NPDES permit for industrial stormwater at three of its scrap recycling facilities. The lower court dismissed the case, holding that C...

A district court held unlawful BLM's methodology for assessing the impact of federal actions on the northern spotted owl as well as its failure to offer for sale a declared amount of timber from two western Oregon districts. Under the Oregon and California Lands Act of 1937 (O&C Act), once BLM d...

A district court granted environmental groups' motion to intervene in a landowner's lawsuit challenging FWS' critical habitat designation for the dusky gopher frog in portions of Louisiana and Mississippi. The landowner, who owns property that falls within the designation, argued that the designatio...