Sierra Club v. National Marine Fisheries Service

The federal district court for the District of Maryland dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction a lawsuit brought by environmental organizations challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service’s compliance with the Endangered Species Act in connection with “Federally Regulated Oil and Gas Program Activities in the Gulf of America.” The federal defendants and industry intervenors filed motions to dismiss after the Endangered Species Committee convened on March 31 and exempted all “Gulf of America” oil and gas exploration and development activities associated with the Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Program from ESA requirements. The federal defendants and industry intervenors argued that the Committee’s action rendered the plaintiffs’ claims moot. The court dismissed the case without prejudice.

The federal district court for the District of Maryland denied a motion by Chevron U.S.A. Inc. (Chevron), American Petroleum Institute, and other industry intervenor defendants to transfer environmental organizations’ challenge to a 2025 biological opinion (BiOp) and incidental take statement prepared under the Endangered Species Act to address federally authorized oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico. The intervenor defendants argued that the case should be transferred to the Western District of Louisiana where Chevron and American Petroleum Institute, along with the State of Louisiana, had filed a lawsuit challenging the 2025 BiOp. The Maryland federal court agreed with the intervenor defendants that the case could have been brought in the Western District of Louisiana but found that the intervenors did not establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the factors considered when determining whether to grant a venue transfer motion counseled in favor of transfer. In particular, the court afforded the plaintiffs’ choice of venue substantial weight because a portion of the “complained-of conduct” occurred in the District of Maryland, the location of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s headquarters. The court also found that the interest of justice factor weighed against transfer. Although the court agreed with the intervenor defendants that the cases presented similar legal issues and that there was a risk of conflicting rulings, the court found that those factors weighed in favor of retaining jurisdiction in this first-filed case. The court also was not persuaded that the case was “a local Louisiana dispute that is best decided by a Louisiana court.”

Sierra Club and three other environmental organizations filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Maryland challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS’s) issuance of a new “Biological Opinion on the Federally Regulated Oil and Gas Program Activities in the Gulf of America.” NMFS prepared the biological opinion after the court found in 2024 that a 2020 biological opinion violated the Endangered Species Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. The 2025 biological opinion found that the proposed activities would jeopardize the continued existence of the Rice’s whale but that proposed mitigation measures would prevent jeopardy. The biological opinion also concluded that the proposed activities would not jeopardize the continued existence of other protected species or adversely modify critical habitat. The plaintiffs’ claims included that the biological opinion failed to account for how climate change-related population shifts would interact with effects of the proposed action in the analysis of whether the proposed action would jeopardize protected species or cause adverse modification to critical habitat. The plaintiffs also alleged that NMFS failed to use best available science on the effects of climate change on endangered species and their Gulf habitats. Louisiana, American Petroleum Institute, and Chevron U.S.A. Inc. filed a lawsuit in the Western District of Louisiana challenging the biological opinion. They did not make arguments that were directly climate change-related but asserted that the 2025 biological opinion overestimated impacts of oil and gas program vessels on listed species, imposed a “reasonable and prudent alternative” based on “hypothesized vessel strikes that are not reasonably certain to occur,” used the wrong take standard, and imposed unnecessary “reasonable and prudent measures” to minimize the impacts of incidental take.