In an amended order, a district court granted FWS' and NMFS' motion to voluntarily remand a series of regulations enacted by the Trump Administration that modified how the Services implement the ESA. Environmental groups, states, and cities had argued the regulations violated the ESA, the APA, and N...
Animal agriculture is one of the leading sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon offset markets allow entities to reduce their overall climate impact by financing projects that decrease emissions elsewhere. This Article analyzes the viability of an offset protocol that credits farms for transitioning from raising livestock to growing crops, based on the difference in emissions between these operations.
The Ninth Circuit, 2-1, reversed summary judgment for the Bureau of Reclamation and Santa Maria Water District in a lawsuit concerning the endangered Southern California steelhead. Environmental groups argued the agencies' operation of a dam in the Santa Maria River watershed interfered with the ste...
A district court denied summary judgment for a Maine lobstermen group in a challenge to NMFS' 2021 biological opinion (BiOp) that both authorized a series of federal fisheries, including the lobster fishery, and implemented a conservation framework designed to reduce the fisheries' impact on right w...
A district court vacated two rights-of-way that BLM issued to a company in 2020 to transport water through an existing gas pipeline across federal lands. Environmental groups sought vacatur, arguing the rights-of-way violated FLPMA, NEPA, and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). BLM agreed...
A district court remanded a lawsuit challenging FWS’ decision to downgrade a rare species of parrot from endangered to threatened and to issue a §4(d) rule under the ESA allowing for limited import and export of the bird without an ESA permit. An animal advocacy group sought vacatur, arguing FWS�...
While the environmental justice movement has gained traction in the United States, the relationship between agri-food systems and environmental injustices in rural areas has yet to come into focus. This Article explores the relationship between U.S. agricultural exceptionalism and rural environmental justice through examining right-to-farm laws.
A district court on remand granted environmental groups' request for a permanent injunction in an ESA citizen suit concerning a logging project on private land in Oregon. In initial proceedings, the groups sought a preliminary injunction, arguing the project would result in the taking of marbled mur...
This abstract is adapted from Monte Mills & Martin Nie, Bridges to a New Era: A Report on the Past, Present, and Potential Future of Tribal Co-Management on Federal Public Lands, 44 Pub. Land & Resources L. Rev. 49 (2021), and used with permission.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a challenge to FWS' 2018 decision to modify certain trails in the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. Community groups argued the modifications were significant and that FWS failed to prepare a supplemental EIS and relied on categorical exclusions based on a...