Climate Change: Will Lacey Lend a Hand?
The recent tornado in the Philippines and forecasts of severe weather events ranging from floods to fires and drought, not to mention the global loss of 50 soccer fields of forest every minute, have...
View ArticleUS Announces Significant Measures to Combat Illegal Wildlife Trade
Across the globe, populations of elephants, rhinos, tigers, and other wild animals have been decimated as poachers, organized criminal syndicates, terrorist organizations, and corrupt officials seek to...
View ArticleMassachusetts High Court Upholds Environmental Agency’s “Improvement” Of...
How far can an agency deviate from a statutory scheme in order to achieve what it sees as the goals of that scheme? Can the regulatory structure “improve on” the statute? These issues are currently...
View ArticleBeware the Specter of Debarment
Debarment is the process whereby the federal government can permanently prevent a company from doing business with the federal government or suspend a company from doing business with the federal...
View ArticleChicken Little…and Falling Skies?
On March 27, 2014, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced its intention to list the Lesser Prairie Chicken (Tympanuchus Pallidicinctus) as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act....
View ArticleEre the Bat Hath Flown: FWS Ponders Listing the Northern Long-Eared Bat as...
On October 2, 2013, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposed to list the Northern Long-Eared (NLE) bat as endangered across its entire range under the Endangered Species Act of 1973...
View ArticleLitigating the “butterfly effect”: Proximate Cause, Imminent Harm and...
A recent ruling from the Fifth Circuit involving the endangered whooping crane clarifies the level of proof require to show to establish proximate cause of “take” under the federal Endangered Species...
View ArticleAdjusting for Wind: USFW Extends Term for Eagle Take Permits
Developing wind energy is a good thing, right? Protecting eagles is too, isn’t it? Both may not be true given recent developments that highlight the tension between wind projects and the Bald and...
View ArticleESA Unconstitutional? Maybe, maybe not
Bucking the trend of five Circuit Courts of Appeal, the U.S. District Court for Utah decided the Endangered Species Act (ESA) cannot be applied on private property for a wholly intrastate species. The...
View ArticleOld MacDonald Had a Farm [Loan] E-I-E-I-O My
On December 2, 2014 the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas enjoined the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the Farm Service Agency (FSA) (together the “Agencies”)...
View ArticleCape Wind Project Suffers Another Blow: Is This The Knock-Out?
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on July 5 issued a ruling that the federal government violated the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedure Act in...
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Trump’s Impact on Environmental Law? Let the Speculation Begin!
What will a Trump Presidency mean for environmental law? I’m not sure my crystal ball is better than anyone else’s, but here are a few quick thoughts:It’s still going to be difficult to amend the key...
View ArticleTrump Greenlights Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines, but the Battle is Far...
President Trump wasted no time making good on his promise to reverse President Obama’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move U.S. energy policy towards cleaner energy sources. On January...
View ArticleBumble Bee Buzzkill
Citing its deep decline in numbers, on January 10, 2017, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) listed the rusty patched bumble bee, Bombus affinis, as endangered under the Endangered Species Act...
View ArticleRifle Shots – Unleashing the Power of the Tweak
Here’s a thought exercise: I’ll give you a budget of 25 words (including conjunctions, articles, and all the other little ones). You use up a word by either deleting, adding, or replacing one in an...
View ArticlePOTUS, SCOTUS & WOTUS: What Do They Have in Common With Michael Stipe and...
Then-candidate Donald Trump’s unauthorized use of REM’s 1987 song, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”, during a 2015 campaign rally sparked a sharp objection by the band’s...
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The Conservative Case for Chevron Deference: Chapter 2
In January, I argued that conservative opposition to the Chevron doctrine seemed inconsistent with conservative ideology and I noted, at a practical level, that opposition to Chevron does not always...
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Perhaps It Should Be Renamed the “Really, Really, Endangered Species Act”
Last Friday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a District Court decision ruling that the Fish & Wildlife Service decision that listing of the whitebark pine as endangered or threatened was...
View ArticleH.R. 23: A VERY BAD FEDERAL WATER LAW BILL—AND A WORSE PRECEDENT
H.R. 23 is an important and most unfortunate environmental bill currently working its way through the U.S. Congress. Sponsored by California Republican Congressman David Valadeo—with a strong assist...
View ArticleThe Curious Case of the Prairie Dog that Stopped Barking
In 2015 a district court enjoined enforcement of an Endangered Species Act 4(d) rule on the ground the federal government lacked authority under the Commerce Clause to regulate the take of a purely...
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