A district court denied an environmental group's motion for summary judgment in a challenge to FWS' denial of the group's 2014 petition to update the recovery plan for grizzly bears. The group argued that FWS' denial was arbitrary and capricious. The court concluded that while recovery plans were vi...

A district court denied FWS' and the Forest Service's motion to dismiss a challenge to their bear baiting policy for black bear hunting in national forests in Idaho and Wyoming. Environmental groups argued that the number of grizzly bears taken due to hunting black bears using bait in the states' na...

The Tenth Circuit affirmed in part and dismissed in part a lower court ruling in a challenge to actions taken by the National Park Service (NPS) regarding wildlife management on inholdings in Grand Teton National Park. Environmental groups challenged NPS' 2014 determination that a regulation prohibi...

The Ninth Circuit vacated the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s (BOEM’s) approval of an offshore drilling and production facility in the Beaufort Sea. Environmental groups argued that BOEM violated NEPA by arbitrarily and capriciously estimating the environmental consequences of the alternativ...

A district court granted in part summary judgment for DOI in a challenge to a 2016 FWS rule that prohibited certain hunting activities in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge. The state of Alaska and a hunting group first challenged the Service's determination that the rule fell within a categorical e...

A district court dismissed a challenge to the Bureau of Reclamation's alleged ongoing, unpermitted take of bull trout through operation of an irrigation project near Glacier National Park. An environmental group argued that the Bureau's water control and delivery structures in the St. Mary River dra...

A district court granted in part and denied in part advocacy and industry groups' motion for summary judgment in a challenge to FDA's decision to allow a company to create and farm genetically engineered salmon. The groups argued that FDA violated NEPA by failing to take a sufficiently "hard look" a...

A district court dismissed a challenge to FWS' designation of critical habitat for the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse. Southwestern ranchers argued that the Service underestimated the designation's economic impacts by not considering costs beyond the designation itself, in violation of the ESA. The...

A district court remanded to NMFS for a third time in a decades-long lawsuit concerning the Service's incidental take statement (ITS) assessing the impact of dredge fishing on loggerhead sea turtles in the Atlantic. A conservation group argued that the Service's revised ITS responding to the court's...