The Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded FWS' biological opinion and incidental take statement for a proposed natural gas pipeline from West Virginia to Virginia. Environmental groups argued FWS failed to adequately consider the pipeline's environmental context while analyzing impacts to the endanger...
The Washington Supreme Court upheld the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife's issuance of a marine finfish aquaculture permit to allow a fish farmer to transition from farming Atlantic salmon to steelhead trout. Conservation groups argued the Department's conclusion that an EIS was not requir...
A district court granted environmental groups' motion for summary judgment in a challenge to FWS' 2019 determination that listing the Yellowstone bison as endangered or threatened under the ESA was not warranted. The groups argued the determination, among other things, failed to properly consider wh...
A district court granted in part summary judgment for environmental groups in a challenge to FWS' and the Forest Service's decisions regarding a logging and prescribed burning project in the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. The groups argued the Services violated the ESA by failing to reiniti...
A district court dismissed the state of Alaska's lawsuit against the Federal Subsistence Board (FSB) regarding the Board's authorization of a subsistence hunt for a southeast Alaska tribe. Alaska argued the FSB violated the APA, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, and the Sunshine A...
The First Circuit granted NOAA's motion to stay a district court order preliminarily enjoining the agency's partial seasonal closure of a Maine lobster fishery to protect endangered North Atlantic right whales. A fishing union had argued the closure was an arbitrary and capricious application of the...
A district court granted summary judgment for an environmental group in a challenge to FWS' decision not to list the Joshua tree as threatened under the ESA. The group challenged the Service's findings that Joshua trees were not threatened under either the five threat factors or throughout a signifi...
A district court granted the state of Louisiana's motion for preliminary injunction to delay the effective date of NMFS' 2019 rule requiring turtle excluder devices on certain skimmer trawl vessels operating in inshore waters. The state argued the effective date was arbitrary and capricious because ...
A district court granted interim injunctive relief for environmental groups in a lawsuit concerning the Army Corps of Engineers' operation of dams in the Willamette River Basin. The groups sought injunctive relief to remedy the Corps' substantive and procedural ESA violations previously found by the...
A district court denied a motion for preliminary injunction in a challenge to the National Park Service's (NPS') management practices for the tule elk population in an area of Point Reyes National Seashore. Plaintiffs argued the elk were dying from lack of adequate forage and water due to recent dro...