Alaska Oil & Gas Association v. Jewell

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the United States Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS’s) designation of critical habitat for polar bears. The Ninth Circuit reversed a decision by the district court for the District of Alaska that vacated the entire designation. The Ninth Circuit said that the district court had improperly required that FWS identify specific elements within the designated critical habitat areas that were essential to polar bear conservation and currently in use by polar bears. The Ninth Circuit said this requirement was directly counter to the Endangered Species Act’s conservation purposes. The Ninth Circuit instead considered whether the designated areas “contained the constituent elements required for sustained preservation of polar bears,” and found that FWS’s designation of terrestrial denning habitat and barrier island habitat was not arbitrary and capricious. In reaching this conclusion, the Ninth Circuit said that FWS had properly taken future climate change into account in designating the critical habitat. The Ninth Circuit also said that FWS had satisfied its obligations to consider concerns raised by the State of Alaska.