Description: Challenge to amendments to the Endangered Species Act regulations.
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Center for Biological Diversity v. Bernhardt
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 05/18/2020 Order Download Motion for leave to participate as amicus curiae denied without prejudice. 05/18/2020 Order Download Motion to dismiss granted with leave to file amended complaint within 21 days. The court found that the organizational plaintiffs had not demonstrated injury-in-fact to their members or that they suffered direct injury. 05/18/2020 Order Download Motions to intervene granted. 01/07/2020 Motion to Intervene Download Motion to intervene as defendants filed by 13 states. 12/23/2019 Opposition Download Opposition filed to motion to dismiss. 12/17/2019 Motion to Intervene Download Motion to intervene by Kenneth Klemm, Beaver Creek Buffalo Co., Washington Cattlemen’s Association, and Pacific Legal Foundation. 12/06/2019 Motion to Dismiss Download Motion to dismiss filed by federal defendants. 10/23/2019 Complaint Download First amended complaint filed. 08/21/2019 Complaint Download Complaint filed. Lawsuit Challenging Amended Endangered Species Act Regulations Raised Climate Change Concerns. Seven organizations filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the Northern District of California challenging amendments to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) regulations. The plaintiffs asserted that the regulations undermined and violated the ESA and that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service had failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. Among the amendments challenged in the lawsuit is the revised definition of “foreseeable future.” The amendments provided that “foreseeable future” extends “only so far into the future as the Services can reasonably determine that both the future threats and the species’ responses to those threats are likely.” The complaint alleged that the “likely” requirement “increased the level of certainty required to protect species, contravening Congress’s intent to ‘give the benefit of the doubt to the species’” and that “[t]he consequence of imposing this increased certainty requirement is that species facing extinction from the impacts of climate change or other future events involving prediction and uncertainty will improperly be deprived of protection until after it is too late to prevent their extinction, violating the ESA’s command to use the best available science.”