In an unpublished opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the Forest Service in a challenge to its planned road construction project near Mount St. Helens to address the threat of a nearby lake's potential breach. Environmental groups argued the project violated NEPA and the Nationa...

A district court denied summary judgment for environmental and tribal groups in a challenge to the Army Corps of Engineers' decision to issue permits under the CWA and the Rivers and Harbors Act for a project to replace sections of an oil pipeline in Minnesota. The groups argued the Corps' decision ...

A district court granted summary judgment for an oil and gas company in a decades-long suit concerning the company's oil lease on land sacred to the Blackfeet Nation in Lewis and Clark National Forest. On the latest remand from the appellate court, the company challenged the Secretary of DOI's 2016 ...

A district court vacated two rights-of-way that BLM issued to a company in 2020 to transport water through an existing gas pipeline across federal lands. Environmental groups sought vacatur, arguing the rights-of-way violated FLPMA, NEPA, and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). BLM agreed...

A district court affirmed DOI’s decision to postpone oil and gas lease sales in the first quarter of 2021 in response to the president’s issuance of Executive Order No. 14008 pausing new lease sales on federal lands. The state of Wyoming and industry groups challenged DOI’s decisions to postpo...

The D.C. Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part summary judgment for DOI in a challenge to a supplemental EIS that BOEM prepared for two oil and gas lease sales in 2018. Three environmental groups had argued that BOEM failed to assess a true “no action” alternative because it assumed ener...

A district court permanently enjoined the Biden Administration from implementing a "stop" on new oil and gas lease sales on public lands or in offshore waters in thirteen states—Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West...

A district court reinstated a 2016 moratorium on new coal leasing on public lands that had been lifted by a DOI secretarial order in 2017. Environmental groups, states, and a Native American tribe initially filed suit challenging DOI's decision to lift the moratorium, and the court determined the de...

A district court granted in part and denied in part federal agencies' motion to dismiss a NEPA challenge to the Biden Administration's immigration actions. A coalition seeking immigration reform argued that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of State, and DOJ failed to follow ...

The Fifth Circuit vacated a district court's issuance of a nationwide preliminary injunction enjoining the Biden Administration from pausing new oil and gas lease sales on federal lands. Thirteen states filed suit against the Administration after the president issued Executive Order No. 14008, chall...