National Wildlife Federation v. National Marine Fisheries Service

National Wildlife Federation and other organizations (NWF) and the State of Oregon filed motions for preliminary injunctions seeking to require the Bureau of Reclamation and other federal defendants to implement measures in the operation and maintenance of the Columbia River System’s dams and reservoirs to protect salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act. They filed their motions after the Trump administration withdrew from a memorandum of understanding that specified interim parameters for the system’s operation. Oregon’s motion asserted that climate change increased the risk of irreparable harm to listed species. Oregon argued that the measures sought in the preliminary injunction motion would reduce irreparable harm and “stave off near-term extinction for many listed populations” until a more comprehensive solution was reached.

National Wildlife Federation and other organizations (NWF) and the State of Oregon filed motions for preliminary injunctions seeking to require the Bureau of Reclamation and other federal defendants to implement measures in the operation and maintenance of the Columbia River System’s dams and reservoirs to protect salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act. They filed their motions after the Trump administration withdrew from a memorandum of understanding that specified interim parameters for the system’s operation. In support of its motion, NWF argued that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claims that the defendants violated the ESA, including by failing to analyze whether the management of the Columbia River System would avoid jeopardy to the listed species in a future that includes climate change. NWF contended that the 2020 biological opinion prepared for the proposed action engaged “willful blindness to the real-world effects” and was arbitrary and capricious.

The National Wildlife Federation plaintiffs, the States of Oregon and Washington, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Nez Perce Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation asked the court to lift the stay of the litigation. They contended that a June 12, 2025 Presidential Memorandum and the federal defendants' subsequent withdrawal from a 2023 Memorandum of Understanding was a "significant change in circumstances" that warranted lifting the stay. The court granted the motion to lift the stay on the same day.

Environmental and conservation groups, the State of Oregon, and federal defendants asked the federal district court for the District of Oregon to stay litigation in a long-running case challenging management of the Columbia River System, a system of hydroelectric dams and reservoirs on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. In January 2021, plaintiffs filed an eighth supplemental complaint alleging that actions finalized in 2020 did not cure defects identified by the court in 2016. Among other shortcomings, the January 2021 complaint alleged a failure to fully assess the impacts of climate change on salmon, and failure to consider climate change threats to the Southern Resident killer whale. In their motion to stay litigation, the moving parties said they had reached an agreement for short-term operations of the Columbia River System that would provide “an interim compromise” while the parties worked towards “a long-term comprehensive solution that, if successful, may resolve all claims in this litigation.”

Environmental groups and the State of Oregon filed motions for preliminary injunctions in the long-standing lawsuit challenging biological opinions prepared under the Endangered Species Act for the continued operation and maintenance of the Columbia River System. The most recent biological opinion (BiOp) and related record of decision (ROD) were issued in September 2020 after district courts invalidated six earlier biological opinions. Oregon argued that many errors identified by the court when it invalidated prior BiOps were repeated in the 2020 BiOp and ROD and that the “precarious” status quo of salmon and steelhead fish had worsened because of low population abundances and climate change. Oregon requested short-term measures to protect listed fish while the federal defendants comply with legal obligations. The environmental groups argued that a preliminary injunction was “urgently needed to reduce irreparable harm” to listed steelhead and salmon. They contended that they were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims, including their claim that the defendants failed “to rationally or legally account for the effect of advancing climate change.”

National Wildlife Federation and other plaintiffs filed an eighth supplemental complaint in their long-standing suit challenging management of hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. The plaintiffs alleged that actions taken by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 2020 did not cure defects—including climate change-related defects—identified in a 2016 order of remand by the federal district court for the District of Oregon. Among other things, the plaintiffs alleged that a 2020 biological opinion failed to fully assess the impacts of climate change on salmon, and also failed to consider climate change threats to the Southern Resident killer whale. Under NEPA, the plaintiffs alleged that the analysis of alternatives “does not account for the advancing impacts of climate change, and instead is based on temperatures observed in the region between 1929 and 2008” and that the environmental impact statement then addresses climate change separately from this “counterfactual” scenario in an assessment that “is cursory, truncated, and fails to incorporate credible and available information.” The alleged shortcomings included consideration of climate impacts over a 25-year timeframe despite the analysis of other impacts over 50 years and failure to assess how climate change will compound harms.

The federal district court for the District of Oregon ruled that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS or NOAA Fisheries), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) had acted arbitrarily and capriciously when they undertook reviews of the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS) pursuant to the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The FCRPS is a system of hydroelectric dams, powerhouses, and reservoirs on the Columbia and Snake Rivers, which are also home to 13 species or populations of endangered or threatened salmon and steelhead. In 2014, NOAA Fisheries issued a Biological Opinion (BiOp) that concluded the FCRPS would avoid jeopardy to listed species based on implementation of 73 “reasonable and prudent alternatives.” No new environmental impact statement (EIS) was prepared in connection with the records of decisions issued by the Corps and BOR that implemented the reasonable and prudent alternatives. The court identified a number of deficiencies in the agencies’ determinations. Among other shortcomings, the court found that the 2014 BiOp had not adequately assessed the effects of climate change. The court said that NOAA Fisheries had not applied the best available science, had overlooked important aspects of the problem, and had failed to analyze climate change effects, including the “additive harm” of climate change; its impacts on the effectiveness of reasonable and prudent alternative actions, particularly long-term habitat actions; and the increased chances of an event that would be catastrophic for protected species. The court said that NOAA Fisheries had apparently failed to consider information indicating that climate change could diminish or eliminate the effectiveness of habitat mitigation efforts and that the agency had not explained why a “warm ocean scenario” it rejected was less representative of expected future climate conditions than the scenario on which it relied. With respect to the NEPA review, the court found that the Corps and the Bureau of Reclamation could not continue to rely on EISs prepared in the 1990s and some more recent narrowly focused documents. The court said that there had been “significant developments in the scientific information relating to climate change and its effects” that “leads to the conclusion that the relevant physical environment has changed.” The court directed NOAA Fisheries to produce a new BiOp by March 1, 2018 (but kept the 2014 BiOp in place in the meantime) and ordered preparation of a new EIS to consider the 2014 BiOp’s reasonable and prudent alternatives.