WildEarth Guardians v. Jewell

The D.C. Circuit reversed the holding on standing, finding that the district court “sliced the salami too thin” when it required that the specific type of pollution causing the environmental groups’ injury be the same type that was considered inadequately in the final environmental impact statement (FEIS).  The D.C. Circuit concluded that the harm to the groups’ members’ recreational and aesthetic interests caused by local pollution was a sufficient injury in fact to challenge all of the alleged deficiencies in the FEIS, including those related to global climate change.  On the merits, however, the D.C.  Circuit called the alleged climate change-related inadequacies “of the flyspecking variety” and concluded that BLM had satisfied its obligations to consider climate change under the National Environmental Policy Act.