Alliance for the Wild Rockies v. James

Alliance for the Wild Rockies and three other organizations filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Montana challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) authorizations for vegetation management treatments throughout the 905,000 acres in southwest Montana managed by BLM’s Dillon Field Office. The plaintiffs alleged that the BLM defendants deferred selection of specific activities as part of the project “in a way that undermines informed decision-making and meaningful public participation” in violation of NEPA and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act. Among the failures cited in the complaint was an alleged failure to disclose and analyze the reasonably foreseeable effects of climate change in the project area and how climate change would continue to affect the project area and the authorized activities’ effectiveness. The complaint also alleged that the BLM defendants failed to take a hard look at the project’s effects on greenhouse gas emissions and carbon storage, including effects associated with the project’s “widespread prescribed fires.” The plaintiffs also alleged that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had concluded that the project was not likely to jeopardize the threatened whitebark pine in violation of the Endangered Species Act.