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 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 held that BLM violated NEPA when it sold four oil and gas leases on approximately 2,700 acres of federal land in Monterey and Fresno counties without considering impacts from hydraulic fracturing. The leases are located in California's Monterey Shale Formation, which is estimated to...
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 commercial fishing groups may go forward with their NEPA lawsuit against the Bureau of Reclamation in a case involving the Bureau's approval of eight water delivery contracts in California's Central Valley. The groups argued that the Bureau's EA failed to adequately consid...
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 ...
A district court upheld BLM's approval of a record of decision (ROD) allowing the construction of 112 wind turbines in an area that contains cultural and biological significance to a Native American tribe. BLM's decision to approve the ROD was reasonable as it considered all relevant factors and pro...
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...