Eric B. Fjelstad Partner

The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a proposed rule on June 27, 2017, that will rescind the Obama administration’s 2015 Clean Water Rule and recodify the pre-2015 regulations that it replaced.

In NRDC v. Pritzker, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit confirmed that the Marine Mammal Protection Act’s (MMPA) incidental take authorizations will be construed narrowly and conservatively, giving the benefit of doubt to marine mammal species.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued a decision on July 5, 2016, that declined to regulate discharges from forest roads for regulation under Section 402 of the Clean Water Act.

In Mingo Logan Coal Company v. EPA, the D.C. Circuit recently upheld EPA’s use of its “veto” authority over an Army Corps of Engineers permit to fill jurisdictional waters for the Spruce Mine in West Virginia. Section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act provides EPA authority to “deny or restrict the use of any defined area for specification (including the withdrawal of specification).

A majority panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently dismissed the State of Alaska’s challenge to the U.S. Secretary of the Interior’s authority to acquire land in trust for Alaska tribes on the ground that the state’s challenge is moot.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently rejected the Ninth Circuit’s interpretation of § 103(c) of the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA).

In a decision that could result in significant new restrictions on development activities in the Arctic as well as set important Endangered Species Act (ESA) precedent in the Western United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently reversed an Alaska district court’s judgment vacating the designation of critical habitat in Alaska for the polar bear.

On February 11, 2016, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service jointly published final regulations and a final policy addressing critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act.