[20220218]LSB10697_美国地方法院撤销灰太狼退市规则.pdf

CRS Legal Sidebar Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress Legal SidebarLegal Sidebari i U.S. District Court Vacates Gray Wolf Delisting Rule February 18, 2022 On February 10, 2022, a district court vacated and remanded the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services (FWSs) rule (the “delisting rule”) that delistedthat is, removed from the list of endangered and threatened speciescertain gray wolf “entities.” The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California held that the rule violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) in a number of ways. For example, the court concluded that FWS could not delist an entity solely because it determined the listed entity no longer met the definition of a species under the ESA and that FWS must instead apply the ESAs explicit standards for delisting. The court also determined that FWS had not offered a reasonable construction of the phrase significant portion of its range, which appears in the ESAs definitions of endangered species and threatened species. This is not the first time a court has invalidated FWSs interpretation of this phrase; in 2018, a court vacated FWSs 2014 joint policy with the Nat