Environment and Natural Resources

When Mike and Chantell Sackett won their case against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2023, their victory strengthened property rights not just for them, but for individuals across the entire country. For decades, the EPA, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, had been broadly interpreting the Clean Water Act's (CWA) definition of ...

Last month Pacific Legal Foundation formally launched the Environment and Natural Resources practice group. The core message is simple: Let's build an environmental future rooted not in fear, but in freedom and abundance. Environmental and natural resource issues are best solved when rooted in principles of liberty, human flourishing, and constitut ...

Annie Snider, writing for Politico Pro's Morning Energy newsletter, profiled the launch of our new Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) practice group yesterday: The small but mighty property rights group Pacific Legal Foundation that has scored a half dozen environmental wins at the Supreme Court over the past two decades is gearing up to ...

At Pacific Legal Foundation, we believe people are the ultimate resource. Our Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) practice roots itself in the conviction that when human creativity is unleashed through liberty, it solves problems and expands the world's potential. The future isn't built on fear or control—it's built on freedom and innovation. ...

President Trump's Make America Beautiful Again Commission reflects many of the goals we pursue in PLF's Environment and Natural Resources practice group: Americans should be free to use and care for our lands and resources in ways that promote prosperity and human flourishing. The plan for this Commission gets quite a bit right. It recognizes that ...

In the last few days of 2024, the Biden administration quietly released Public Land Order 7956 — an administrative maneuver that halted mineral development across more than 20,000 acres in western South Dakota. The move immediately blocked F3 Gold's mineral exploration plans, even though the company had secured a lawful permit from the U.S. Depar ...

California has been having a rough year: In a short six months it was hit with wildfires, urban unrest, and even some small earthquakes. But this week the Golden State made a decision that should change its luck: It reformed its most powerful environmental regulation, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), to ease the way for new constru ...

Senator Mike Lee stepped onto a political land mine when he proposed the federal government sell a tiny pinch of the 640 million acres that it owns, most of it west of the Rockies. Politicos from left and right condemned the proposal as a betrayal of a grand heritage. I too have an issue with Senator Lee's proposal: It doesn't go far enough. Not on ...

Fifty-five years ago, Congress passed and President Richard Nixon signed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) into law. For a number of infrastructure projects that are built, funded, or approved by the federal government, NEPA requires federal agencies to prepare an environmental impact statement, or EIS. That EIS is essentially a public r ...