Introducing Free to Flourish
Last summer, Pacific Legal Foundation launched our Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) practice—doubling down on our 50+ years of success as America's leading defender of property rights and environmental common sense. With this new practice, our mission is threefold: Defend the freedom to use both public and private land productively ...
Minnesota’s batty restriction on timber operations
Over a third of Minnesota is forested, and the state's forest products industry ranks as its fifth-largest manufacturing sector by payroll employment. Citizens' ability to use these resources, however, has been unconstitutionally restricted by a state and federal government scheme to protect three bat subspecies. Two of these species were listed as ...
The state wants to track lobstermen’s every move. One is asking the Supreme Court to end it.
Everyone in Vinalhaven knows two things: the weather and the price of a lobster — $6. Ten miles off the coast of Maine, this rugged outcropping of fewer than 1,300 people is one of the cradles of the New England lobster industry. Dark evergreens cling to the hillsides above its blue coves; granite cliffs take the full force of the North Atlant ...
Who owns the rain? When government regulation loses common sense
There are moments when you hear a legal argument and wonder whether common sense has quietly left the building. Take the case of an Oregon man who went to jail in 2012 for collecting rainwater in basins. The state water department said he was interfering with local rivers because they're usually filled by the rain. If you "interrupt the flow of ...
California Globe : In California, You Can Do Everything Right, and Still Get Crushed
Take an oil and gas operator who spends millions upgrading equipment, filing emissions reports, and complying with air-quality rules that change more often than a coastal forecast. Every form is filed. Every inspection is passed. And yet, a permit is suddenly delayed or reinterpreted, a new reporting requirement is layered on top of the old one, or ...
Youth climate suits don’t have a constitutional leg to stand on
A federal appeals court has just announced an April hearing date in the youth climate suit Lighthiser v. Trump. The lawsuit was filed against the Trump administration in May 2025 by a group of 22 youth plaintiffs and spearheaded by the environmental activist organization "Our Children's Trust." The lawsuit asks the court to strike down a group o ...
Florida is leading the next nuclear revolution
Across the country, energy demand is rising. Data centers, advanced manufacturing, population growth, and electrification are all putting new pressure on the grid. Unfortunately, that has spilled over and is now also putting pressure on your wallet. If Florida wants to lower electricity costs and attract continued investment, the state needs to ...
A breakthrough for natural resource access and congressional oversight
Editor's note: On January 21, 2026 the U.S. House of Representatives passed a Congressional Review Act resolution to repeal the Public Land Order blocking access to the Duluth Complex. The resolution now moves to the Senate. For the first time in history, a Public Land Order is being submitted to Congress for review. That ...
Washington Post : The law that is trapping America in the past
Enacted in 1969 — before the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act — the National Environmental Policy Act was meant to ensure that federal agencies consider environmental effects before approving major actions. But today, NEPA has become a blockade that prevents common-sense projects from moving forward. The result is an America tr ...