Delta smelt appeal hearing next week

On Monday morning in Las Vegas, the Ninth Circuit will hear the consolidated appeals of the federal government and its environmentalist supporters challenging Judge Oliver Wanger’s decision to overturn the Delta smelt biological opinion.  These appeals promise to be precedent-setting, as Judge Wanger’s decision was one of the first to recognize that species interests do not always and everywhere trump human interests, and that the government is not exempt from meeting basic principles of scientific and technical expertise in its decisionmaking under the Endangered Species Act.

I’ll be present at the hearing, and hope to provide substantive analysis soon after the hearing on this blog.