Articles

Author: Brandon Middleton As we noted earlier, the State of Alaska is prepared to contest bogus Endangered Species Act restrictions.  Leading the effort is Governor Sean Parnell, who sees the issue of ESA abuse as a critical one for Alaska's future: He announced plans to fight the scope of the federal Endangered Species Act, including &# ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service published a proposal to revise the existing critical habitat for the bull trout.  The proposal, covering some 22,000 miles of streams and 500,000 acres of lakes of reservoirs in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada, is a significant expansion over the trout's c ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Today the United States Fish and Wildlife Service published its final revised critical habitat designation for the California red-legged frog, a species listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.  The revised designation, amending the 2006 designation, covers over 1.6 million acres of habitat in Cal ...

Author: Damien M. Schiff Last week, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service announced the release for comment of its draft economic impact analysis of the proposed critical habitat designation for the polar bear. (Recall that the polar bear is currently listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Pursuant to the R ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Next week, I'll be arguing PLF's appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Home Builders Association of Northern California v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service.  The case concerns the Service's near million-acre critical habitat designation for over a dozen vernal pool species ( ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff On Friday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in Arizona Cattle Growers Association v. Salazar, concerning a challenge to the critical habitat designation (comprising over 8 million acres) for the Mexican spotted owl.  (N.B.  PLF represented the Association in the district court). The ma ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff In Home Builders Association of Northern California v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service, we challenged the Service's 600,000-acre-plus designation of critical habitat for 15 vernal pool species. The case was designed to apply our victory in the Alameda Whipsnake case (under the same case title). Unfortun ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff This week, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service issued a new designation of critical habitat for the ESA-protected bull trout.  The designation comes after a successful lawsuit in federal district court in Oregon brought by environmental groups, Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. Allen, challenging t ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff On Friday, Pacific Legal Foundation filed a petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, on behalf of several home building and agricultural groups, asking the high court to review the Ninth Circuit's deision in Home Builders Association of Northern California v. United States Fish &# ...