A district court granted environmental groups' motion for summary judgment in a challenge to FWS' decision not to designate critical habitat for the rusty patched bumble bee. The groups argued the Service had not established that the bee would not benefit from the designation, and that it failed to ...
A district court granted in part and denied in part FWS' motion to dismiss a challenge to the alleged failure to preserve gray wolves. An environmental group argued the Service violated §4(f) of the ESA because it never developed or implemented a single recovery plan for the 44-state listing of all...
A district court denied EPA's motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its failure to perform required ESA consultations with FWS and NMFS before approving the state of Washington's limits on aquatic cyanide in 1993, 1997, and 2007. An environmental group argued that EPA failed to complete ESA §7 co...
The Fifth Circuit, 2-1, granted a petition to review FERC orders it previously vacated and remanded, which instructed utilities in the WestConnect transmission planning region on how to implement a cost allocation scheme for grid improvements in the region. A utility company argued the orders, which...
This abstract is adapted from Danielle Stokes, Renewable Energy Federalism, 106 Minn. L. Rev. 1757 (2022), and used with permission.
This abstract is adapted from Avi Zevin et al., Building a New Grid Without New Legislation: A Path to Revitalizing Federal Transmission Authorities, 48 Ecology L.Q. 169 (2021), and used with permission, and was discussed on a public webinar hosted by the Environmental Law Institute.
A district court granted DOI's and the Army Corps of Engineers' motion to dismiss a lawsuit concerning construction of a wind farm off the coast of New York. Four homeowners sought to halt construction, claiming that onshore trenching associated with the project would worsen existing perfluoroalkyl ...
The D.C. Circuit granted in part and denied in part a petition to review FERC orders that permitted the creation of a new energy transmission service across several states in the Southeast. The first, the Deadlock Order, was adopted when the commissioners deadlocked 2-2 on whether the overall propos...
The D.C. Circuit vacated DOE's 2020 rule establishing more stringent energy efficiency standards for commercial packaged boilers, and its 2022 supplemental document responding to the court's previous remand order that it address comments raised during the rulemaking process. Industry groups argued D...
A district court adopted a magistrate judge's findings and recommendations to grant in part and deny in part cross-motions for summary judgment in a lawsuit concerning the Forest Service's approval of a vegetation management project in the Kootenai National Forest. An environmental group had argued,...