General Land Office of State of Texas v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

The federal district court for the Western District of Texas upheld the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS’s) 90-day finding that supported denial of a petition to remove the golden-cheeked warbler from the list of endangered species. A 2014 review of the warbler’s status found that the warbler was still threatened by widespread destruction of its habitat; at that time, the warbler had been classified as “critically vulnerable” to climate change. In 2015, a petition to delist was submitted, and in 2016, the FWS found that the petition to delist failed to present information regarding the threats of habitat destruction and fragmentation and regarding how those threats affected analysis of other potential threats. The FWS also found that the petition to delist failed to present any information on other potential threats to the warbler’s survival, including climate change. In upholding the FWS’s findings, the court rejected the argument that the review of the petition to delist was overly stringent, as well as the argument that the FWS acted arbitrarily and capriciously by listing the warbler as endangered while refusing to designate critical habitat.

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The court dismissed all but the plaintiff's claim that the failure to delist the warbler, while continuing to refuse to designate critical habitat, was in contradiction of scientific data presented in the petition to delist.

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