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caption id="attachment_46402" align="alignright" width="300" Show me on the picture where activity will have no impact on the river./caption This morning a California Court of Appeal issued an unfortunate opinion (although given the state of California courts, perhaps an unsurprising one) affirming in full a trial court decision that imposed pub ...

As our regular readers will know, PLF is representing three New Mexico organizations—New Mexico Farm & Livestock Bureau, New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association, and New Mexico Federal Lands Council—challenging the illegal critical habitat designation for jaguars in New Mexico. Despite only challenging the designation of land in New Mexico, ...

caption id="attachment_40734" align="alignleft" width="222" Photo courtesy of FWS/caption The Center for Biological Diversity is threatening to sue the Fish & Wildlife Service for not imposing ruinous and unnecessary restrictions on private property owners throughout 37 states to protect the Northern long-eared bat. It contends that heavy-hand ...

No, according to a decision from the Second Circuit issued this week. In Friends of Animals v. Clay, a radical animal rights group challenged a federal permit to take migratory birds that pose a risk to planes at New York's La Guardia and JFK airports. Birds can be a major threat to planes. Collisions can cause engines to explode. Probably the mos ...

The Endangered Species Act has often been called the "pit bull of environmental law" because "it's short, compact and has a hell of a set of teeth. Because of its teeth, the act can force people to make the kind of tough political decisions they wouldn't normally make." As we've regularly reported, it can impose burdensome (and unconstitutional) re ...

caption id="attachment_38450" align="alignright" width="352" By Riverhugger (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons/caption In the Wall Street Journal, attorney and former high-ranking EPA official Bill Wehrum has an op-ed $ arguing that the Animas River spill shouldn't lead to criminal punishment, but neither should similar accidents caused by privat ...

On Friday, August 9, 2013, I'll be speaking to lawyers from around the nation converging at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in San Francisco, regarding PLF's legal challenge to CARB's Cap and Trade Regulation.  The regulation is the only one of its kind among the 50 states, and the lawsuit has garnered national attention. I' ...

In his best known work The Morality of Law, legal philosopher Lon Fuller identified the conditions that must be satisfied for any legal system to comply with the rule of law.  Among other things, rules must be of general application – ad-hoc and inconsistent rules are forbidden – and be publicized, clear, and consistent.  Many of these elemen ...

Author: Brian T. Hodges Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of the TV series Breaking Bad.  For the uninitiated, this show chronicles the downward spiral of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling high school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with cancer.  Walt turns to a life of crime, manufacturing methamphetamine with the aim of se ...