Citizens for Clean Energy v. U.S. Department of Interior

In an unpublished memorandum, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a lawsuit challenging former Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke’s 2017 rescission of an Obama administration moratorium on the federal coal leasing program was moot because Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland had “revoked” the Zinke order in April 2021. The Ninth Circuit said a district court had incorrectly concluded that Secretary Haaland’s failure to reinstate the moratorium meant that the Zinke order remained in partial effect; the Ninth Circuit said any injury related to the absence of a moratorium was not fairly traceable to the revoked Zinke order. The Ninth Circuit also found that the voluntary cessation exception to mootness did not apply.

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In a case that successfully challenged Trump administration decisions to revoke a moratorium on the federal coal leasing program, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied without prejudice conservations organizations’ motion to dismiss appeals of District of Montana rulings in 2019 and 2022 that remanded to federal defendants for review under NEPA. In their motion to dismiss the appeals by Wyoming, Montana, and the National Mining Association, the organizations argued that appeal of the 2019 order was time-barred and that the 2022 order was not an appealable final decision because the order vacated and remanded to federal agencies, who chose not to appeal. The Ninth Circuit said the organizations could renew these arguments in their merits briefing.

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