California Natural Resources Agency v. Ross

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The federal district court for the Eastern District of California granted federal defendants’ motion for voluntary remand without vacatur in two cases challenging biological opinions issued regarding two major water diversion projects in California, the Central Valley and State Water Projects. The court also imposed an interim operations plan through the end of the 2022 water year in September 2022 while the federal defendants conduct a re-initiated consultation process. The court denied the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations’ request for alternative injunctive relief that would impose a different set of interim measures. The cases—which are stayed through the end of September 2022—involve alleged violations of the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act, including allegations that the analysis supporting the conclusions that the projects were not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of threatened and endangered fish species or to destroy or adversely modify their critical habitat did not adequately consider climate change impacts.

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The federal district court for the Northern District of California transferred to the Eastern District of California two cases challenging federal adoption in 2019 of biological opinions for long-term operations of two major water diversion projects in California¬—the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project. One case was brought by six environmental organizations and the other by California agencies and the attorney general. The plaintiffs alleged, among other things, that the federal agencies—the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service—failed to consider the projects’ impacts in the context of climate change when the agencies determined that the projects would not jeopardize the continued existence of threatened and endangered fish species or destroy or adversely modify the species’ critical habitat. The court concluded that the Eastern District’s local interests in the case (e.g., the presence of the reservoirs and critical habitat in the Eastern District) and considerations of judicial economy (another case concerning the projects was pending in the Eastern District) made transfer appropriate.

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