Spirit of the Sage Council v. Norton, 294 F. Supp. 2d 67 (D.D.C. 2003); 411 F.3d 225 (D.C. Cir. 2005)
Case Summary:
On behalf of Spirit of the Sage Council and other conservation groups, we challenged the Interior Department's controversial "No Surprises" policy, under which holders of Incidental Take Permits ("ITPs") receive extraordinary guarantees that for the life of their permits, they will never be required to conserve more habitat than initially required by the Department, even if environmental circumstances or available information drastically change. We initially brought a challenge under the Administrative Procedure Act, arguing that Department had adopted the No Surprises approach without even affording the public an opportunity to comment. We settled that case, with the Department agreeing to solicit public comment from scientists, conservation groups, and other members of the public before making a final decision on the No Surprises approach. Despite widespread public opposition, the Department then issued a formal rule adopting the No Surprises approach.
After the Interior Department embodied the No Surprises policy in a formal rule, we filed a new case in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging that rule as violative of the Endangered Species Act and Administrative Procedure Act. In response to our lawsuit, the government issued a new rule providing that ITPs can be revoked where species are being jeopardized due to new circumstances, thus calling into question the entire premise of the No Surprises approach, but adopting a very narrow revocation standard with no advance public comment. The Court held that the government committed "flagrant" violations of the law in adopting this rule and remanded all of the regulations for additional consideration. See Spirit of the Sage Council v. Norton, 294 F.Supp. 2d 67 (D.D.C. 2003). The Court of Appeals subsequently dismissed the government's and industry's appeals of the district court order. See Spirit of the Sage Council v. Norton, 411 F.3d 225 (D.C. Cir. 2005)
After the Interior Department repromulgated its narrow ITP revocation standard, and refused to change the No Surprises Rule despite many public comments urging it to do so, we brought another challenge to the closely related rules. The district court rejected our facial challenges to the rules but left the door open to as applied challenges to particular ITPs.
Plaintiffs: Spirit of the Sage Council, The Humane Society of the United States, Klamath Forest Alliance, The Mountaineers, and individuals.
Court: United States District Court for the District of Columbia