Western Watersheds Project v. Schneider

The federal district court for the District of Idaho granted a motion for a preliminary injunction barring the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from implementing the 2019 BLM Sage-Grouse Plan Amendments for Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada/Northeastern California, and Oregon. The court directed that a 2015 plan (which is also being challenged in the lawsuit) remain in effect while the court considers the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims, which include claims that the 2019 Plan Amendments failed to evaluate climate change impacts. In granting the preliminary injunction, the court found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claims that the 2019 Plan Amendments contained substantial reductions in protections for the sage grouse (compared to the 2015 Plans) without justification and that the environmental impact statements (EISs) failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act’s requirement that reasonable alternatives be considered; failed to contain a sufficient cumulative impacts analysis; and failed to take the required “hard look” at the environmental consequences. The court also found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claim that supplemental draft EISs should have been issued. In addition, the court found a likelihood of irreparable harm due to numerous site-specific applications for drilling and mining projects in sage-grouse habitats that would be subject to the 2019 Plan Amendments and found that the balance of hardships tipped towards the plaintiffs.

The federal district court for the District of Idaho denied intervenors’ motions to sever and transfer a case challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s) sage grouse plans for 15 sub-regions in 10 western states. The plaintiffs originally challenged plans issued by the Obama administration and later supplemented their challenges with additional claims, including a failure to evaluate climate change impacts, after BLM revised the plans, allegedly in response to a directive from Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to relax restrictions on oil and gas development in sage grouse habitat. The court was not persuaded by the intervenors’ arguments that local concerns justified severing the case and transferring the challenges to the sage grouse plans for a particular state to the federal court in that state. The court said this argument ignored the complaint’s allegations of “common failings” that “were heavily influenced by directions from the Trump Administration and the Interior Secretary.” The court concluded that severing the case would require duplicative arguments and perhaps lead to conflicting decisions, and that circumstances had not changed since the court rejected a previous motion to sever and transfer.

Environmental groups sought to file a supplemental complaint in their lawsuit challenging federal land use plan amendments adopted in 2015 as part of the National Greater Sage-Grouse Planning Strategy. In the original complaint, the groups contended that the 2015 plans did not go far enough to ensure sage-grouse conservation, including because federal defendants had failed to consider climate change impacts on sage-grouse habitats and populations. In their proposed supplemental complaint and the brief supporting their motion for leave to file it, the groups asserted that the Trump administration had recently taken final actions to roll back protections included in the 2015 plans and that the administration’s actions would “hasten the sage-grouse’s decline toward extinction.” The supplemental complaint alleged that in rolling back the 2015 plans, the defendants had against failed “to analyze the cumulative and synergistic impacts of climate change on sage-grouse habitats and populations,” which would include “larger and more frequent wildfires and droughts, and invasions of cheatgrass and other non-native vegetation” that “will further reduce and fragment sage-grouse habitats.”

Four environmental organizations filed a complaint in the federal district court for the District of Idaho to challenge approvals by the United States Forest Service and the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of revised land use plans for lands located in the range of the greater sage-grouse in Idaho and other states. The plaintiffs alleged that the plans did not implement best available science and government experts’ recommendations and would not ensure the greater sage-grouse’s survival, which was threatened by the “synergistic impacts of climate change and human activities” on their habitat. The plaintiffs alleged claims under NEPA, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, and the National Forest Management Act.