Utah

Case: Notice of Appeal-Western Watersheds Project, Center for Biological Diversity, and American Bird Conservancy v. Bureau of Land Management

October 31, 2017 — Advocates for the West filed an administrative appeal and petition for stay of BLM’s decision to lease priority sage-grouse habitat in central Utah for oil and gas development. The auctioned parcels are home to the isolated and imperiled Sheeprocks population of greater sage-grouse. The Sheeprocks population experienced a nearly 40 percent decrease over […]

Case: Advocates for the West v. United States Department of Justice

October 12, 2017 – Advocates for the West is representing itself in a suit filed today by Senior Attorney Todd Tucci against Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Department of Justice, seeking disclosure of unlawfully withheld documents demonstrating that President Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lack authority to vacate or shrink Bears Ears National Monument, Grand Staircase Escalante […]

July 13, 2026 — President Trump signed two executive orders significantly reducing the size of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. Together, the orders cut almost three million acres of monument protection, with Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument losing 1.69 million acres and Bears Ears losing 1.24 million acres. The reductions amount to about […]

Case: Intent to Sue Over Violations of Section 4 of the Endangered Species Act

September 27, 2018 — A federal court decision preserves the listing status for Gunnison sage-grouse as a threatened species, with the critical habitat the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service designated for it intact. Fewer than 3,000 of this unique sage-grouse species remain, clustered around Colorado’s Gunnison Basin. Advocates for the West represented WildEarth Guardians and […]

Case: Western Watersheds Project v. Daniel Ashe, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Advocates for the West sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over its refusal to protect the pygmy rabbit as an threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. The pygmy rabbit is a native rabbit once found throughout the Great Basin, in recent years rabbit populations and habitat have been eliminated or destroyed by […]

Case: Western Watersheds Project, Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust and Utah Environmental Congress v. U.S. Forest Service

February 14, 2013 — U.S. Magistrate Judge Ron Bush ruled in our favor on all 4 challenged decisions allowing the U.S. Forest Service to forgo conducting environmental analysis on 43 grazing allotments in Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. In 2010, Region 4 of the Forest Service renewed grazing permits for hundreds of allotments without conducting any […]

Case: Western Watersheds Project, Oregon Natural Desert Association and Ruby Pipeline Agree to Establish Conservation Funds

Ruby settlement established new conservation fund. Advocates for the West recently helped broker an innovative settlement between WWP and El Paso Pipeline Corp. to establish a $15 million Sagebrush Habitat Conservation Fund. The Fund will work to retire grazing permits on a willing seller basis to mitigate for impacts of the 650-mile Ruby natural gas […]

Case: Western Watersheds Project, et al. v. U.S. Forest Service

November 11, 2010 — After the parties partially settled this case, the Forest Service still tried to move the remainder of Plaintiffs’ case from the Northern District of California to the Eastern District of California.  In a short but sweet Order, the Court denied this motion and retained the case. May 30, 2008 — We […]