nebugeater wrote:Any update on the elephants
Here is what I could find on the case.
On February 6, 2016, Friends of Animals v. Ashe et. al. was filed with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. The Case Number is 1-16-cv-00216. The defendants are Daniel M. Ashe, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).
Friends of Animals (FofA) Requested Relief is basically:
A. Declare that the FWS didn’t consider all the environmental impacts during the NEPA process.
B. Have the FWS decision to allow import of the elephant postponed until FWS fully complies with NEPA.
C. Prohibit the FWS from issuing a permit to import elephants until NEPA requirements are met.
D. Award Friends of Animals’ reimbursement of costs, including attorney fees.
E. “Grant Friends of Animals any other relief that the Court deems just and proper.”
As I read it (and I am not an attorney) they are saying that FWS didn’t follow the requirements of NEPA. FofA’s argument is that the environmental document submitted, an Environmental Assessment (EA) was not stringent enough, and that a full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) should have been prepared. The complaint also suggests that the FWS did not take all pertinent factors into consideration.
Legal maneuvering is currently taking place. On February 26 a motion for a preliminary injunction was requested, and on February 29 a motion to dismiss were filed.
All this information was found on publically available websites. “If you torture the data enough, it will confess” (R. Coase)