Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. Gassman
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,...
MRP Properties Co., LLC v. United States
The Sixth Circuit reversed a district court ruling in a lawsuit concerning 12 oil refinery sites that operated during World War II. The current owner of the refineries sought contribution from the U.S. government for environmental contamination discovered at the sites, arguing the government's produ...
Maine Lobstermen's Ass'n v. National Marine Fisheries Service
The D.C. Circuit reversed summary judgment for NMFS in a Maine lobstermen group's challenge to the Service's 2021 biological opinion (BiOp) that authorized a series of federal fisheries, including the lobster fishery, and implemented a conservation framework designed to reduce the fisheries' impact ...
Arizona v. Navajo Nation
The U.S. Supreme Court held, 5-4, that an 1868 peace treaty between the Navajo Nation and the United States establishing the Navajo Reservation reserved necessary water to accomplish the purpose of the reservation, but did not require the U.S. government to take affirmative steps to secure water for...
Klamath Irrigation District
The Ninth Circuit, 2-1, denied a municipal irrigation district's request to compel a district court to remand to state court its motion for preliminary injunction in a suit concerning water allocation in the Klamath Basin. The district initially sought to stop the Bureau of Reclamation from releasin...
Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics v. United States Forest Service
A district court granted in part and denied in part an environmental group's motion for summary judgment in a CWA citizen suit concerning the Forest Service's discharge of aerially deployed fire retardant into navigable waters of the United States without an NPDES permit. The group argued the Servic...
Western Watersheds Project v. Haaland
The Tenth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part dismissal of a challenge to the Forest Service's approval of grazing permits in Bridger-Teton National Forest that authorized the "lethal take" of grizzly bears. Environmental groups challenged the approval, arguing FWS violated the ESA because...
Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Supreme Court held that the CWA extends to only those "wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are 'waters of the United States' in their own right," such that they are indistinguishable from those waters, in a challenge to an EPA compliance order stating that landowner...
Nantucket Residents Against Turbines v. U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
A district court denied summary judgment for a group of landowners in a challenge to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's (BOEM's) and NMFS' decisions approving an offshore wind energy project off the coast of Nantucket. The group argued that NMFS violated the ESA by failing to adequately conside...