A district court held that DOI has unreasonably delayed agency action in the agency's review of an oil and gas drilling permit on BLM lands in Montana held sacred to Native Americans. Under the APA, agencies must decide issues presented to them within a reasonable time. Here, BLM initially approved ...

A district court denied Alaska's request for a court order directing DOI to review the state's plan for the exploration of oil and gas resources in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). When Congress enacted the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) in 1980, it authorized th...

The Ninth Circuit held that the U.S. Forest Service violated NEPA and other environmental safeguards when it designated over 2 million acres of public land within the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest for use by snowmobiles and other winter motorized vehicles. In 2009, the Forest Service issued a...

The D.C. Circuit reversed a lower court injunction requiring BLM to sell more timber from federal land managed under the Oregon and California Railroad and Coos Bay Wagon Road Grant Lands Act of 1937. The lower court had sided with timber companies, granting their motions for summary judgment and is...

A district court adopted a magistrate judge's report and recommendation and ordered FWS to finalize and approve a comprehensive conservation plan for five national wildlife refuges in the Klamath Basin Complex on or before August 1, 2016. FWS conceded, and the court had already ordered, that FWS vio...

A district court held that trade associations and nonprofit corporations representing members of the timber industry lack standing to challenge the Forest Service's 2012 planning rule governing development of individual land and resource management plans for the 155 national forests and 20 national ...

The Ninth Circuit upheld BLM's resource management plan (RMP) and EIS for five allotments within the 1.3 million acres of land administered by BLM in Southwestern Arizona and Southeastern California. Environmental groups that wanted to reduce the amount of livestock grazing allowed on the lands chal...

A district court upheld a U.S. Forest Service decision allowing a uranium mine to renew operations near the Grand Canyon National Park. In January 2012, DOI withdrew approximately 633,547 acres of public lands and 360,002 acres of National Forest System lands for up to 20 years from location and ent...