The Fifth Circuit ordered FERC to provide a meaningful explanation for the length of time it takes for final action in Federal Power Act §206 complaint proceedings, in a lawsuit concerning complaints that have gone four to six years without resolution. The Louisiana Public Service Commission petiti...

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...

A district court granted a company's motion to preliminarily enjoin a Louisiana parish from enforcing a 12-month moratorium on activities related to well drilling on parish land. The company moved for an injunction prohibiting enforcement of the moratorium insofar as it banned seismic surveys, Class...

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...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court's denial of a Native American tribe's motion to remand to state court, and the dismissal of, its challenge to the city of Seattle's operation of a dam on the Skagit River. The tribe initially sued Seattle in state court, alleging that operation of the dam ...

The D.C. Circuit vacated a license issued by FERC for operation of a hydroelectric dam on the Susquehanna River in Maryland. The state of Maryland issued a CWA §401(a)(1) certification to the dam's operator in 2018 with conditions. The operator challenged the certification, and the parties reached ...

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, 2-1, remanded to FERC a 2018 decision to give all transmission owners unilateral authority to fund power line upgrades in the Midwest. The Commission had initially only allowed direct transmission owners to decide between the generators paying for the line upgrades upfront, or payi...

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...