A district court granted environmental groups' motion for a preliminary injunction in a challenge to FWS' decision to install a permanent pipeline for Arctic grayling in Red Rock Lakes Wilderness in southwestern Montana. The groups argued the decision violated the Wilderness Act by ignoring the Act'...

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...

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 reversed summary judgment for Oregon counties, trade groups, and timber companies in five lawsuits concerning President Obama's expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Plaintiffs argued that by outlawing logging on land included in the monument through Proclamation 9564...

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,...

The Ninth Circuit granted DOI's motion to dismiss a long-running land exchange dispute over construction of a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge. The court found the Secretary of the Interior's recent withdrawal of the exchange, which was approved by a previous Secretary, mooted the c...

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 ...