Endangered Species Law & Policy

Last Friday, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California issued an order on competing motions in the coordinated cases challenging the 2019 biological opinions (BiOps) that govern operation of California’s State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project (Projects). The hefty order, which spanned over a hundred and twenty pages, attempted to distill the thousands of pages of briefing the parties submitted on the matter. Admittedly, stakes were high: these two Projects supply water to more than 25 million Californians and to farmers across the ...

On January 20, 2021, President Biden announced his administration will review regulatory actions taken between January 20, 2017 and January 20, 2021 in accordance with an Executive Order titled “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis” (EO). Among the agency actions to be reviewed under the EO are a number of regulations and policies finalized by the Trump Administration involving Endangered Species Act (ESA), Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), and other related statutes.

An initial pre-publication announcement ...

On February 19, 2020, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation issued a Record of Decision (ROD) on the reinitiation of consultation on the coordinated long-term operations of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project.  At the same time, the President signed a memorandum on developing and delivering more water supplies in California. The Department of the Interior issued a press release describing these actions. 

The execution of the ROD signals the shift from operations of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project under the biological opinions issued by the U.S. Fish and ...

Consistent with Governor Brown's Drought Proclamation and Executive Orders, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) sought and obtained a temporary modification of certain water quality objectives from the California State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) in order to allow for increased exports of water from the Central Valley Project and State Water Project in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta).  On June 3, 2015, environmental groups, including the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance ...

On February 29, 2012, the California Natural Resources Agency released approximately 10,000 pages of "preliminary" draft planning documents relating to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) for public review and comment.  The documents fall into two categories: Draft BDCP documents, and Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) documents (see the list below for details).

The BDCP is being developed in compliance with the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the California Natural Communities Conservation Planning Act (NCCPA ...