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Weekly litigation report — September 30, 2017

September 30, 2017 | By JAMES BURLING

Government workers have another chance to declare independence! Supreme Court asked to restore Utah prairie dog conservation program—and constitutional limits on federal power Neither legislative bodies nor government bureaucrats can steal property National Forest lands should be accessible to all — not just a few hearty backpackers PLF ...

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Still fighting to keep public lands open to all

September 28, 2017 | By OLIVER DUNFORD

Yesterday, we filed our reply brief in Granat v. USDA, where we ask the court to review the U.S. Forest Service’s decision to close thousands of previously available roads and trails to motorized travel in Plumas National Forest. Federal law requires the Forest Service, before deciding about road-closings in national forests, to consider ...

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Compulsory union subsidies on the chopping block

September 28, 2017 | By DEBORAH LA FETRA

The First Amendment protects the right to speak and associate as well as the right to refrain from speaking and associating. Today the Supreme Court decided to hear the First Amendment case – Janus v. AFSCME – that will determine whether non-union public employees must continue to subsidize the very unions they do not want … ...

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Who knew that permafrost was ‘navigable water’?

September 27, 2017 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

Yesterday, we received an adverse decision in Tin Cup LLC v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In this case, we represent a small, family-run Alaska pipe and steel fabrication firm in its challenge to the Corps’ assertion of Clean Water Act jurisdiction over some 200 hundred acres of permafrost on the company’s Fairbanks property. We ̷ ...

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Yes, Trump can revoke national monuments

September 27, 2017 | By JONATHAN WOOD

The Washington Post has published my op-ed defending the President’s power to revoke existing national monuments. Several months ago, President Trump ordered a review of the last 21 years of monument designations. For good reason, the evidence is indisputable that abuse of the monument power has been far worse the last few years. … ...

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Yes, Trump can revoke national monuments

September 27, 2017 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has finally completed a months-long review of dozens of controversial national monuments, recommending major changes to 10 monuments, including shrinking six and relaxing regulation of the other four. … ...

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Defending property rights and prairie dog conservation from overreaching federal bureaucrats

September 26, 2017 | By KYLE GRIESINGER

Pacific Legal Foundation attorneys Jonathan Wood and Damien Schiff have a conversation with Collin Callahan about the Utah prairie dog, a rare species of rodent found in Southwestern Utah. For decades, federal Endangered Species Act regulations have forbidden state biologists from doing what is best for the species and local residents from doing th ...

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PLF asks Supreme Court to restore constitutional limits on federal power

September 26, 2017 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Our Constitution limits the federal government’s powers to those expressly listed in the document. But the government we have today is a far cry from the limited government described by our Founding Fathers. PLF is asking the Supreme Court to restore the Constitution’s limits by rejecting an extreme, limitless interpretation of the Comm ...

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Kill regulations to save the sage grouse

September 26, 2017 | By KYLE GRIESINGER

The greater sage grouse is a chicken-sized bird that’s found on 172 million acres of western lands. The grouse population of nearly 500,000 birds in 11 states was managed effectively, primarily through state and private conservation efforts. That is until 2015, when the federal government asserted itself as the primary conservator of the spec ...