Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed a lawsuit in federal district court in the District of Columbia alleging that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) violated the Endangered Species Act by failing to issue final rules on the organization’s petition to list the Kern Canyon slender salamander and relictual slender salamander by statutory deadlines. FWS proposed listing the Kern Canyon salamander as threatened and the relictual slender salamander as endangered in October 2022, 10 years after CBD’s petition, and CBD alleged that the rules should have been finalized by this point, even though FWS extended the comment period on the proposal by one year. CBD alleged that FWS had identified wildlife and climate change as the primary ongoing threats to both salamanders. The complaint asked the court to compel FWS to issue final rules by a date certain.