The Ninth Circuit held that BLM complied with NEPA and FLPMA when it allowed a uranium mine to resume operations, after a 17-year hiatus, under a plan of operations the agency approved in 1988. Environmental groups argued that the 1988 plan of operations became ineffective after the mine closed in t...

A district court held that the U.S. Forest Service violated its travel management rule, but not NEPA, when it issued its record of decision approving the Stanislaus National Forest Motorized Travel Management EIS. The agency looked at a reasonable range of alternatives to the proposed action, proper...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the U.S. Forest Service's adoption of the Idaho Roadless Rule, which creates different categories of land within Idaho's 9.3 million acres of inventoried roadless areas. The court affirmed and adopted as its own a lower court ruling that also approved the rule. FWS's biologi...

The California Supreme Court held that all subdivisions, including the conversion of a mobile home park from tenant occupancy to resident ownership, are "developments" for purposes of the California Coastal Act. Nor does the Subdivision Map Act exempt such conversions from the need to comply with ot...

A district court ordered BLM to revise the Craters of the Moon and Pinedale resource management plans (RMPs) to correct deficiencies concerning impacts on the sage-grouse. In an earlier decision, the court held that BLM's EISs for the RMPs failed to adequately analyze impacts to the sage grouse in v...

A California appellate court affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a citizen group's lawsuit seeking to vacate a city's approval of a "big box" retail store. The group alleged that the approval violated planning and zoning laws. Their suit, however, is time barred under Cal. Gov. Code §65009(c...

A New York court struck down a city's local ordinance that placed a two-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing within its borders. The city argued that it issued the ordinance under its local police powers and that it was therefore not required to refer the law to the county planning board prior to...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision denying an environmental group attorney fees after it successfully challenged BLM's post-fire grazing decisions and authorizations in the Jarbridge Resource Area in Idaho. In 2004, an environmental group filed suit against BLM challenging its renewal...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing gold miners' suit against the U.S. Forest Service challenging its decision to limit the use of motor vehicles to certain roads in the El Dorado National Forest. The miners have standing to pursue their claim. At least some of the miners ha...

The Ninth Circuit held that the U.S. Forest Service complied with NEPA and the NFMA when it approved a fuels reduction project in the Lewis and Clark National Forest. The project involves understory thinning and burning to mitigate the risk of wildfire in the Middle Fork Judith Wilderness Study Area...