Endangered Species Act

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In Almond Alliance of California v. Fish & Game Com. (2022) 79 Cal.App.5th 337, the Third District Court of Appeal held that the Fish and Game Commission (Commission) did not exceed its statutory authority under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) when the Commission designated four bumble bee species as candidate species for consideration under CESA. In doing so, the Court found that these bees, which are terrestrial invertebrates, fall within the definition of a “fish” for purposes of CESA.…

In Environmental Law Foundation v. State Water Resources Control Board (2018) 26 Cal.App.5th 844, the Third District Court of Appeal held that the public trust doctrine applies to groundwater basin management where groundwater may effect “navigable waters” and the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), Water Code section 10720 et seq., did not change this.

The…

In Central Coast Forest Association v. Fish and Game Commission (2018) 18 Cal. App. 5th 1191, the California Third District Court of Appeal found the California Fish and Game Commission (Commission) was correct to deny a petition to delist coho salmon from state protection under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA). Deferring to the scientific…

In Defenders of Wildlife v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 109509, the Northern District of California refused to preliminarily enjoin Panoche Valley Solar (PVS) from constructing a 247-megawatt solar facility comprised of approximately 1,529 acres of photovoltaic panels installed on a 2,154-acre site in the Panoche Valley in San…

In Imperial County, just north of the Mexican border, lies the Imperial Sand Dunes Planning Area, a 227,000-acre tract of desert, of which 214,930 acres is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). This swath of land is home to the Algodones Dunes, the largest active sand dune system in the United States. A…

In Alaska Oil & Gas Association v. Jewell, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 3624, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court and upheld the Fish and Wildlife Service’s (“FWS”) final rule designating 187,000 square-miles as critical habitat to protect threatened polar bears as required by the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”).

Under the ESA, FWS is…

In 2005, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) designated the Green Sturgeon as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). When a species is considered threatened, under ESA, agencies are required to designate critical habitat for that species. Critical habitat is land that is essential to the conservation of the species and may…

The dispute in Cottonwood Environmental Law Center v. U.S. Forest Service, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 10176 (Cottonwood), involved the ongoing battle over Federal protection of the Canada Lynx. In 2000, the Canada Lynx was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Six years later, the Fish and Wildlife…

In Alaska Wilderness League v. Sally Jewell, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 9755, a coalition of environmental groups sued various administrative agencies following their approval of Shell Gulf of Mexico, Inc.’s (Shell’s) Oil Spill Response Plans (OSRPs) for their planned oil rigs in Alaska’s arctic coast.

OSRPs are mandated under a combination of both the…

In Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Ctr. v. Nat’l Oceanic & Atmospheric Admin., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 70622, the Northern District of California vacated two Incidental Take Permits (ITPs), an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), and a biological opinion, but refused to enjoin the defendants from pursuing their project. The matter involved two ITPs that the Fish and Wildlife…