The court preliminarily enjoined the federal defendants and developers from taking action to close an agreement to exchange 19.84 acres of land within the refuge for 35.69 acres of land held by two of the developers. The injunction also barred commencement of construction on the line through the refuge until the court had an opportunity to consider the administrative record underlying the agencies’ February 2024 decisions. The court stated that “[t]here are a number of problems with the [developers] being allowed to proceed. Most fundamentally, federal defendants and [the developers] have orchestrated the events here to preclude judicial review of the final determination until after substantial damage has already been done to what until now was the Refuge. Whatever the merits of plaintiffs’ challenge to the federal defendants’ decision to proceed with the land exchange under the relevant statutes, some meaningful review by this court is necessary to determine ‘whether that decision is supported by substantial evidence.’”

Challenge to federal agency actions that would facilitate development of a high-voltage transmission line from Dubuque County, Iowa, to Middleton, Wisconsin, passing through the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge.

National Wildlife Refuge Association v. Rural Utilities Service

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Wisconsin Federal Court Temporarily Blocked Construction of Transmission Line Through Wildlife Refuge

Filed

United States of America

Wisconsin

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Wisconsin Federal Court Temporarily Blocked Construction of Transmission Line Through Wildlife Refuge

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