A district court denied summary judgment for commercial fishermen and a trade group in a lawsuit concerning NMFS' allocation of red grouper fishing privileges in the Gulf of Mexico among recreational and commercial fishermen. Plaintiffs argued that Amendment 53 to the fishery management plan for ree...

The Ninth Circuit, 2-1, affirmed summary judgment for FWS in a lawsuit concerning a petition to amend the Service's 1993 recovery plan for the endangered grizzly bear. An environmental group petitioned FWS, proposing additional recovery areas in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Utah that it argu...

The Ninth Circuit granted in part and denied in part petitions to review EPA's 2019 amended registration of the pesticide sulfoxaflor. Environmental groups alleged that the registration, which unconditionally approved new uses of sulfoxaflor requested by the company that created the pesticide, viola...

A district court granted in part and denied in part an animal sanctuary's motion to dismiss an ESA citizen suit brought by an animal rights group. The group alleged the sanctuary violated the ESA by taking endangered or threatened species, unlawfully possessing ESA-protected animals, and unlawfully ...

The D.C. Circuit granted environmental groups' motion for writ of mandamus to require EPA to complete its effects determination for the registered pesticide cyantraniliproles. The groups argued EPA was eight years past its deadline under the ESA to complete the effects determination, that it had fai...

A district court granted in part and denied in part conservation groups' motion for an order on remedy after it invalidated NMFS' 2021 biological opinion (BiOp) and final rule as related to the U.S. lobster fishery. The parties agreed the rule should be remanded without vacatur to NMFS along with an...

A district court granted DOD's motion to dismiss a challenge to its decision to halt fence construction along the U.S.-Mexico border in response to President Biden's proclamation declaring an end to the national border emergency. A corporation that owns land adjacent to the fence argued that DOD's d...

In an amended order, a district court granted FWS' and NMFS' motion to voluntarily remand a series of regulations enacted by the Trump Administration that modified how the Services implement the ESA. Environmental groups, states, and cities had argued the regulations violated the ESA, the APA, and N...

The Ninth Circuit, 2-1, reversed summary judgment for the Bureau of Reclamation and Santa Maria Water District in a lawsuit concerning the endangered Southern California steelhead. Environmental groups argued the agencies' operation of a dam in the Santa Maria River watershed interfered with the ste...

A district court denied summary judgment for a Maine lobstermen group in a challenge to NMFS' 2021 biological opinion (BiOp) that both authorized a series of federal fisheries, including the lobster fishery, and implemented a conservation framework designed to reduce the fisheries' impact on right w...