Center for Biological Diversity v. Burgum

The federal district court for the District of Oregon remanded a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) final rule listing the streaked horned lark as threatened rather than endangered and vacated a Section 4(d) rule under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that extended certain ESA protections for endangered species to the lark. The court found that the listing determination was arbitrary and capricious, including because FWS failed to consider the impact that small population size presently had on the lark. Among the issues identified by the court was the final rule’s failure to “meaningfully analyze small population size in connection with climate change.” Regarding the Section 4(d) rule, the court found that there appeared to be no evidence supporting the rule’s expansion of an exception to the take prohibition for agricultural activity to the entirety of the lark’s range.