Feds Must Consider All Reasonable Alternatives in Endangered Species Analysis
Recently, the D.C. Circuit threw out the United States Fish & Wildlife Service’s (“FWS”) approval of a conservation plan to reduce the impacts of a proposed wind turbine farm on endangered Indiana bats. In Union Neighbors United Inc. v. Jewell, et al., Docket No. 15-5147, the Court of Appeals held that FWS failed to consider all reasonable alternatives to Buckeye Wind LLC’s (“Buckeye”) plan to limit bat injuries and deaths resulting from encounters with the proposed turbines as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”).