WildEarth Guardians v. Salazar

Both sides moved for summary judgment.  The district court granted BLM’s motion, holding that the plaintiffs did not have standing to maintain the action because they could not show that leasing of the lands in question will lead to climate change impacts resulting in specific adverse consequences to their articulated recreational, aesthetic, or economic interests in the discrete areas where they have concrete plans to work or pursue recreational activities.

The court dismissed the portion of the lawsuit that alleged that the decision by the Bureau of Land Management in March 2010 to issue two coal leases was inappropriate because the agency never recertified the area as a coal production region, holding that this was a challenge to BLM’s decision to decertify the Powder River Basin in 1990, and that the six-year statute of limitations had passed. The court held that the plaintiffs could petition BLM to recertify the basin as a coal production region (the plaintiffs have done this, and BLM rejected their suit; they filed a separate action on April 18, mentioned below, challenging this). The remaining claims, which allege that BLM violated NEPA by, among other things, failing to address climate change impacts once the coal is burned, remain.