California Natural Resources Agency v. Ross

California Natural Resources Agency, California Environmental Protection Agency, and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, as representative for the people of California, filed a lawsuit contending that federal agencies violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when they adopted biological opinions finding that the Central Valley Project and State Water Project—the two largest water projects in California—were not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of threatened and endangered fish species or to destroy or adversely modify their critical habitat. The complaint alleged, among other things, that the final environmental impact statement (EIS) included new modeling of climate change scenarios that required further analysis. The plaintiffs asserted that the public and other agencies had not been given an opportunity to comment on the updated modeling. The complaint also alleged that the EIS failed to take the required hard look at the consequences of extreme climate events even though it acknowledged that the frequency and magnitude of such events would increase.