Oregon Natural Desert Association v. Bushue

The federal district court for the District of Oregon found that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) violated the Federal Land Policy and Management Act and the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to timely close research natural areas (RNAs) to livestock grazing in conformance with a 2015 land use plan intended to protect the greater sage-grouse. The court found that the 2015 land use plan was controlling, that closure of the RNAs was a discrete and legally required agency action, and that BLM had unreasonably delayed the closure. The court barred BLM from further authorizing grazing on the RNAs. The motions before the court did not address the plaintiffs’ NEPA claims, including their argument that BLM failed to consider the relationship of abandonment of the closures to global climate change.

Three conservation groups filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's (BLM’s) March 2019 decision “to reverse and abandon” a provision of the 2015 conservation plan for the greater sage-grouse in Oregon that closed approximately 22,000 acres to livestock grazing. The plaintiffs alleged that the “ungrazed areas serve as indispensable control sites to study the effects of grazing—and of not grazing—on unique sagebrush plant communities that are essential to the survival and recovery of the sage-grouse.” They asserted that the amendment to the conservation plan violated the National Environmental Policy Act by, among other things, failing “to consider the relationship of the plan amendment to global climate change,” including failing to consider effects specific to certain areas that lie within BLM-identified Climate Change Conservation Areas. The complaint also asserted a violation of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act.

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