On Wednesday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado issued a ruling in favor of our clients, which include two conservation organizations and two entities that manage conservation easements on ranches in Nebraska. The ruling overturned an incidental take permit issued in 2019 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“Service”), which authorized construction of a massive transmission line that will facilitate substantial expansion of wind energy in the fragile ecosystem of the Nebraska Sandhills that serves as habitat for the American burying beetle, Whooping crane, and other imperiled species. Although the court affirmed the agency’s issuance of the permit on certain grounds, the court held that the Service violated the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act in several ways. Most notably, the court concluded that the Service failed to analyze under any of those laws the additive impacts of wind energy that will stem from the construction of this new transmission line in an area with significant potential for wind energy development. The court also criticized the agency’s failure to consider alternatives that would reduce impacts to historic resources such as the wagon ruts left behind from the westward migration along the Oregon-California Trail in the 1800s. As a result, the court vacated the permit and remanded to the Service for further examination; the opinion can be found here.

*Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.