Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Bernhardt

The Endangered Species Act (the act) was enacted to protect various plants and animals from extinction. The secretaries of the interior and commerce were responsible for enforcing the act and delegated that responsibility to the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) (defendant) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) (defendant). The FWS and NMFS made revisions to regulations pertaining to the act that deregulated protections for endangered species. In October 2019, the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) (plaintiff) sued the FWS, the NMFS, Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt (defendant), and Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross (defendant) in federal district court for violations of the Administrative Procedure Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. A group of organizations (the organizations), a group of private landowners (the landowners), and a group of states (the states) (collectively, the intervenors) filed motions to intervene as defendants. The intervenors argued that their motions were timely filed—either because they were filed before the court made any substantive rulings, or because they were filed close in time to the complaint. The states argued that the regulations being challenged affected how endangered species were protected in each state, that a ruling for the ALDF would interfere with the states’ ability to protect their wildlife, and that the states had an interest in protecting their endangered species. The organizations argued that they represented the industries being regulated by the act, that a ruling for the ALDF would create costly uncertainty for the industries, and that the organizations’ financial interests were different from those of the public. The landowners argued that they had an interest in the litigation as landowners and conservationists, that a ruling for the ALDF would affect the landowners’ use of their land, and that their private interests differed from those of the public. The ALDF did not challenge the intervenors’ allegations.