A district court denied motions to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the federal designation of over 1.8 million acres in the Sierra Nevada mountains as critical habitat for three amphibian species. Associations representing California ranchers and farmers who are no longer able to graze livestock on th...

Pennsylvania's highest court reversed a lower court decision that would have allowed a company to drill, construct, develop, and operate unconventional natural gas wells as a conditional use in a district zoned for residential and agricultural uses. The lower court held that the proposed gas well wa...

A district court held that FWS' decision to withdraw its proposed listing of the "bi-state sage grouse" as threatened under the ESA was arbitrary and capricious. FWS recognized that one of the studies it relied on was questionable. In addition, FWS violated its own policy when it failed to offer any...

The Fourth Circuit, in an unpublished decision, vacated FWS' incidental take statement that authorized a pipeline project along the Atlantic coast to take certain threatened or endangered species. The limits set by the agency were so indeterminate that they undermined the incidental take statement's...

A district court held that a city council breached a development agreement for a proposed export terminal when it passed an ordinance that banned coal operations at "bulk materials facilities" as well as a resolution that applied the ban to the proposed terminal. The development agreement froze in p...