Regulatory Alerts

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service propose to change the process for federal interagency consultation under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Key among these proposed changes is the addition of compensatory mitigation to minimize the impacts of incidental take. Other proposed changes would revise the definition and application of “effects of the action” and “environmental baseline,” and clarify responsibility for reinitiating consultation.

Although the main purpose of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 is to increase the federal debt limit, the legislation also includes important provisions related to permitting reform (see Title III of the Act), specifically, changes in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) itself that effectively solidify many of the changes made by the Trump Administrati

On May 25, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued the long-anticipated Sackett v. EPA decision narrowing the interpretation of federal waters of the United States (WOTUS). Specifically, the court determined that wetlands on the Sackett property, located in northern Idaho, were not subject to federal Clean Water Act (CWA) regulations because they are distinguishable from any other jurisdictional water.