The Ninth Circuit held that a court may not approve a consent decree that substantially and permanently amends regulations that the agency could only otherwise amend by complying with statutory rulemaking procedures. The consent decree at issue in the case arose from a settlement between environment...
The Fourth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a town's complaint seeking to require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to honor commitments the Corps made to it and other North Carolina towns when developing plans to widen, deepen, and realign portions of the Cape Fear River navigation channel. The town ...
A California appellate court affirmed a lower court decision allowing a park district to go forward with its condemnation action to help complete a shoreline park and trail but ordering the district to prepare an environmental impact report under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The ...
The Federal Circuit reversed the dismissal of landowners "rails to trails" takings claims against the government. The landowners alleged that the government's issuance of a Notice of Interim Trail Use or Abandonment (NITU) in 2006 constituted a compensable Fifth Amendment taking because it operated ...
A district court dismissed as untimely Alaska's lawsuit challenging the 2001 roadless rule, which prohibits roadwork and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of national forest, including 14.7 million acres of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests in Alaska. Alaska's cause of action accrued in...
A district court held that FLPMA §204(c), which allows Congress to block DOI withdrawals of new mining claims in excess of 5,000 acres through a resolution of both houses, is unconstitutional. In 2012, DOI withdrew more than one million acres of federal land from mining location and entry in northe...
The Ninth Circuit upheld the U.S. Forest Service's record of decision determining the method for restoring a flood-damaged road in the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest in Nevada. The Forest Service's interpretation of the applicable fish and wildlife restoration standards is reasonable. Accordingly,...
A district court upheld BLM's approval of a record of decision (ROD) and its grant of a right of way (ROW) allowing the construction of a utility-scale wind project in California's Sonoran Desert. Conservation groups challenged BLM's actions under NEPA and FLPMA. But BLM's decision to grant the ROW ...