A district court preliminarily enjoined Iowa from enforcing a statute that criminalized undercover investigations of slaughterhouses and other animal facilities. Environmental groups argued that the state statute impermissibly restricted their free speech under the First Amendment because it was a c...
A district court granted summary judgment to timber industry groups in a challenge to President Obama's designation of approximately 40,000 acres of federal timber land (O&C land) as part of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. The groups argued that the proclamation violated the Oregon and C...
The U.S. Claims Court granted in part and denied in part the U.S. government's motion for summary judgment in a challenge against FWS for rerouting spring waters that had previously flowed through church property into a restoration channel in an effort to save a native fish species. The church argue...
The United States owns, on behalf of all Americans, approximately 30% of the nation’s land, totaling more than 600 million acres. These lands are overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI).
In an unpublished opinion, the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and remanded in part a district court order that lifted an injunction on a logging project in the Kootenai National Forest. Environmental groups sought to enjoin the project again, arguing that the Forest Service's analysis of the project...
In Federal Lands and Fossil Fuels: Maximizing Social Welfare in Federal Energy Leasing, Prof. Jayni Foley Hein assesses inefficiencies in the federal fossil fuel leasing program that lead to the over-extraction of fossil fuels at great societal cost. In recognition of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (DOI's) role in stewarding federal lands for the long-term benefit of the American people, Hein proposes that DOI should adopt a policy of seeking to maximize social welfare or “net public benefits” in its leasing decisions.
The externality costs of fossil fuel production—including pollution costs—are not accounted for under the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (Interior) coal, oil, and natural gas leasing programs. This results in fossil fuel production on public lands imposing significant social costs. Interior’s leasing programs have never been tailored to meet any past or present climate change goals, despite their significant contribution to domestic greenhouse gas emissions.