A district court held that FWS violated NEPA when it reissued two orders authorizing the killing of double-crested cormorants in certain states. FWS issued an EA and FONSI for the orders rather than an EIS. But the EA is insufficient to justify FWS' FONSI because FWS did not take the requisite “ha...

A district court remanded a portion of FWS’ addendum to a 2007 biological opinion concerning the incidental take of grizzly bears in the Grand Teton National Park. In 2007, FWS and the National Park Service (NPS) issued a joint 15-year management plan for bison and elk herds that migrate across th...

The Ninth Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, affirmed in part and reversed in part a lower court decision dismissing fishermen's NEPA claims against the Bureau of Reclamation in connection with its approval of eight interim two-year contracts for delivery of water from the Central Valley Project to...

The Ninth Circuit held that the government complied with NEPA when it issued a FONSI in connection with the redevelopment of a 15-acre waterfront site owned by the U.S. Navy in downtown San Diego. The site serves as the home to several non-operational, administrative components of the U.S. Navy, and...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision dismissing the Navajo Nation's lawsuit against the National Park Service (NPS) that seeks immediate return of human remains and associated funerary objects taken from its reservation. Between 1931 and 1990, NPS removed 303 sets of human remains and a...

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision barring a hunter from using a hovercraft over a stretch of the Nation River that flows through the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, a conservation system unit in Alaska that is managed by NPS. The hunter argued that NPS' ban on hovercraft...

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition challenging the FAA's decision that no EIS was necessary to commence operating commercial passenger service at an industrial airport near Everett, Washington. The FAA prepared an EA, but chose not to prepare an EIS following its finding of no significant environme...

The D.C. Circuit upheld the U.S. Forest Service's decision to exclude approximately 8,300 acres of federal land that fall within recreational ski boundaries from the Colorado roadless rule. The Service issued the rule in 2012, adopting state-specific standards for the designation and management of t...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the U.S. Forest Service's decision to close to domestic sheep grazing approximately 70% of allotments on which grazing had been permitted in the Payette National Forest in Idaho. The Forest Service's decision was made in response to concerns about disease transmission to imm...