Center for Biological Diversity v. Burgum

Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) filed a lawsuit in federal district court in the District of Columbia challenging a 2019 determination by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) denying the brook floater mussel protection under the Endangered Species Act as threatened or endangered. The complaint alleged that the brook floater mussel is a small riverine species of mussel native to the Atlantic slope that is threatened by habitat fragmentation and destruction, changes in water flows, climate change, dams, invasive species and other threats associated with human activity. The complaint said rising water temperatures caused by climate change negatively impact several of the mussel’s lifecycle stages and that increasingly frequent and severe hydrological events destroy its habitat. CBD alleged that FWS “ignored climate change as a primary stressor affecting the species’ viability as part of reaching its ‘not warranted’ finding.” CBD asked the court to vacate and remand the finding that listing was not warranted and to order FWS to issue a new listing determination by a date certain.