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

Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) challenged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s determination that the sand-verbena moth did not warrant listing as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. In the complaint, filed in the federal district court for the Western District of Washington, CBD alleged that only six confirmed populations of the moth remained because shoreline development had destroyed the moth’s dune habitat and invasive plants had crowded out the yellow sand-verbena on which it depends. The complaint further alleged that sea level rise would inundate much of the moth’s remaining habitat, posing an additional threat to the moth’s long-term viability and that FWS had projected that four or five of the moth populations would be entirely extirpated by 2100, “depending on whether there is a low- or high-end greenhouse gas emissions outcome.” CBD asserted that FWS violated the Endangered Species Act and Administrative Procedure Act, including by unlawfully determining that 2100 was not the foreseeable future.