The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision vacating FWS' designation of critical habitat in Alaska for the polar bear, a threatened species, and reinstated the designation. The designation encompasses sea ice, terrestrial denning, and barrier island habitat. Oil and gas associations, several ...

A district court denied a motion to amend its prior ruling vacating FWS' listing of the lesser prairie chicken as a threatened species under the ESA. FWS argued that the court should have remanded, rather than vacated, the rule. It claimed that there is a serious possibility that its decision to lis...

The D.C. Circuit upheld FWS' decision to withdraw its proposal to list as endangered the dunes sagebrush lizard in New Mexico and Texas. After FWS proposed to list the lizard, it received updated information about conservation efforts in the two states. Based on this information, which included a vo...

West Virginia's highest court held that individuals' lawsuit against a power company for injuries they allegedly incurred due to their exposure to coal combustion waste may go forward in the West Virginia courts even though the vast majority of plaintiffs live outside the state. Of the 77 named plai...