Articles

The Congressional Review Act should be one of the nation’s least controversial laws. To restore some measure of democratic accountability to the administrative state, it requires federal agencies to submit the rules they impose on us to our elected representatives for review before they go into effect. That’s it! The law imposes a simpl ...

Complaint filed to stop South Dakota from banning boys from dancing On Thursday we filed our initial complaint in F.L. v. South Dakota High School Activities Association. Freddie Linden is a tremendously talented 15-year-old dancer. Freddie practices dancing for more than 14 hours a week, has won two national championships, and was named Performer ...

Accountability is sorely lacking in the administrative state. Unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats make decisions significantly affecting our daily lives with too little involvement from our elected officials. The Congressional Review Act was intended to restore at least some degree of democratic accountability to the administrative process. It req ...

Today, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service formally removed the lesser prairie chicken — a species widely distributed across Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, including key areas for energy development — from the Endangered Species Act’s threatened list. The delisting was the result of a lawsuit against the agency ...

This morning, the D.C. Circuit rejected a challenge to the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to withdraw its proposed listing of the dunes sagebrush lizard. The withdrawal was based on an intensive effort by states and private parties to conserve the species without the crushing burdens associated with a listing. This is an important win, ...

The Montana Property Rights Conference will take place next week, on August 14 and August 15, at the Northern Hotel in Billings, Montana.  As a keynote speaker, I will open the conference at 1:00 p.m. with a discussion of environmental and land-use issues, including PLF’s United States Supreme Court win last year in Koontz v. … ...

Last February, Chief U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill sustained the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s finding that listing the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act was warranted, but precluded by more pressing projects.  Today, the judge denied a motion by Western Watersheds Project and other environmental groups that sought to ame ...

Author:  Damien M. Schiff Yesterday, Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and two other environmental groups announced their intention to sue the United States Fish & Wildlife Service's decision that listing the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is "warranted but precluded" by higher-priority actions.& ...

Author: Reed Hopper On Friday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that "the greater sage-grouse warrants the protection of the Endangered Species Act but that listing the species at this time is precluded by the need to address higher priority species first."  In reality, this decision may be based more on a recogniti ...