landusepbb
10-10-2005, 07:22 AM
COURT OF APPEALS REFUSES TO REVIEW ERRONEOUS RULING
September 28, 2005 - For Immediate Release
Contact: William Perry Pendley
DENVER, CO. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia today declined to reconsider its decision that the federal government is exempt from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling as to when a case is moot as a result of the voluntary cessation of illegal activity. A Montana hunting group had urged the appellate court to rehear an earlier decision by one of the court’s three judge panels. Montana Shooting Sports Association, a firearm safety and hunting group, in a motion for rehearing en banc, asked the entire court to reverse the panel’s ruling that the federal government is exempt from the Supreme Court’s requirement that a party who, after being sued, ceases its illegal conduct must prove that the illegal conduct will not recur. The panel had ruled that the federal government’s withdrawal of its order closing 20,000 acres in Phillips County in north-central Montana must be dismissed unless the group proves that the federal government would reissue the order. The Court of Appeals gave no reason for its denial.
“We are disappointed; the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2000 could not have been clearer,” said William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents the group and two of its members, Gary S. Marbut and Dr. Philip Barney. “The panel simply ignored that ruling!”
In 1994, the Bureau of Land Management of the U.S. Department of the Interior adopted a management plan for 2.8 million acres of federal land in six counties in north-central Montana. Under the plan, a 20,000 acre area in Phillips County was to remain open, as it always had been, to the hunting of unregulated wildlife, such as prairie dogs. Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) had announced its intention to bring a “nonessential” experimental population of captive-raised black-footed ferrets into a vast region, including land in Phillips County and neighboring Blaine County, which included some land covered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan.
In October 1999, the BLM announced that the 20,000 acre area, which is known as “the 40 Complex,” would be closed to the “discharge or use of firearms” in order “to protect habitat for the reintroduction of the black-footed ferret[].” The BLM relied on assertions by the FWS that black-footed ferrets depend on prairie dogs for food and prairie dog towns for shelter.
In November 2001, the group sued arguing that the closure of the lands to hunting violates both the Endangered Species Act (ESA), by designating “critical habitat” for the ferret and treating the prairie dog as an ESA-listed species, which it is not, and federal land use planning laws. On September 29, 2004, the federal district court ruled the case was moot, a ruling that was upheld by the D.C. Court of Appeals on June 14, 2005.
Mountain States Legal Foundation is a nonprofit, public interest law firm dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system. Its offices are in the Denver, Colorado, metropolitan area.
http://www.mountainstateslegal.org/press_releases.cfm?pressreleaseid=492
September 28, 2005 - For Immediate Release
Contact: William Perry Pendley
DENVER, CO. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia today declined to reconsider its decision that the federal government is exempt from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling as to when a case is moot as a result of the voluntary cessation of illegal activity. A Montana hunting group had urged the appellate court to rehear an earlier decision by one of the court’s three judge panels. Montana Shooting Sports Association, a firearm safety and hunting group, in a motion for rehearing en banc, asked the entire court to reverse the panel’s ruling that the federal government is exempt from the Supreme Court’s requirement that a party who, after being sued, ceases its illegal conduct must prove that the illegal conduct will not recur. The panel had ruled that the federal government’s withdrawal of its order closing 20,000 acres in Phillips County in north-central Montana must be dismissed unless the group proves that the federal government would reissue the order. The Court of Appeals gave no reason for its denial.
“We are disappointed; the Supreme Court’s ruling in 2000 could not have been clearer,” said William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents the group and two of its members, Gary S. Marbut and Dr. Philip Barney. “The panel simply ignored that ruling!”
In 1994, the Bureau of Land Management of the U.S. Department of the Interior adopted a management plan for 2.8 million acres of federal land in six counties in north-central Montana. Under the plan, a 20,000 acre area in Phillips County was to remain open, as it always had been, to the hunting of unregulated wildlife, such as prairie dogs. Meanwhile, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) had announced its intention to bring a “nonessential” experimental population of captive-raised black-footed ferrets into a vast region, including land in Phillips County and neighboring Blaine County, which included some land covered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) plan.
In October 1999, the BLM announced that the 20,000 acre area, which is known as “the 40 Complex,” would be closed to the “discharge or use of firearms” in order “to protect habitat for the reintroduction of the black-footed ferret[].” The BLM relied on assertions by the FWS that black-footed ferrets depend on prairie dogs for food and prairie dog towns for shelter.
In November 2001, the group sued arguing that the closure of the lands to hunting violates both the Endangered Species Act (ESA), by designating “critical habitat” for the ferret and treating the prairie dog as an ESA-listed species, which it is not, and federal land use planning laws. On September 29, 2004, the federal district court ruled the case was moot, a ruling that was upheld by the D.C. Court of Appeals on June 14, 2005.
Mountain States Legal Foundation is a nonprofit, public interest law firm dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and the free enterprise system. Its offices are in the Denver, Colorado, metropolitan area.
http://www.mountainstateslegal.org/press_releases.cfm?pressreleaseid=492