Environmental advocates have dropped a lawsuit accusing the federal government of unlawfully failing to analyze livestock grazing impacts on public lands across the U.S.

In 2023, the Western Watersheds Project and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility filed a complaint claiming the U.S. Bureau of Land Management routinely allowed grazing to continue without evaluating its harms to rangeland health, as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

The nonprofits have now voluntarily dismissed that litigation after months of settlement negotiations with the U.S. government.

Erik Molvar, executive director of the Western Watersheds Project, said only that “the plaintiffs decided not to pursue the case.”

The Public Lands Council, an organization that supports livestock grazing, believes the case was dismissed because the plaintiffs were unlikely to strike a deal with BLM under the incoming Trump administration.

“This is an admission that this suit is not only frivolous but politically motivated,” said Kaitlynn Glover, PLC’s executive director.

Lawsuit allegations

The complaint alleged that BLM has repeatedly renewed 10-year grazing permits on federal allotments without conducting NEPA reviews, effectively circumventing that requirement for two decades or more on many allotments.

“Plaintiffs bring this lawsuit to rectify BLM’s widespread delinquency in completing NEPA analysis for grazing allotments, particularly those that overlap significant environmental resources,” the plaintiffs said.

According to the lawsuit, nearly two-thirds of BLM’s grazing permits were granted without any NEPA analysis, and more than half of the re-authorizations approved each year don’t receive such reviews.

Livestock advocates argued these allegations were misleading, since all grazing authorizations are still subject to NEPA, even if they’re “categorically excluded” from more rigorous examination because the agency considers their environmental effects insignificant.

The BLM doesn’t realistically have the resources to conduct more in-depth reviews of every grazing permit, particularly since environmental groups frequently file lawsuits alleging such evaluations are insufficient, according to agriculture groups.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Public Lands Council, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the American Sheep Industry Association were alarmed enough by the lawsuit to seek intervention in the litigation.

“We wanted to be able to lend our support to the truth and the agency,” said Glover of the Public Lands Council.

‘Sue-and-settle’ claim

The agriculture organizations claimed the U.S. government and the environmental nonprofits were engaging in a “sue-and-settle” strategy to change Western grazing policies while sidestepping administrative law.

The litigation was repeatedly stayed as attorneys for the plaintiffs and the government negotiated a resolution to the case. A federal judge most recently agreed to postpone the proceedings in early November after the parties said they were “close to concluding settlement discussions.”

The recent dismissal is “welcome news” because it frees up time that BLM can devote to rangeland health and other important issues, rather than litigation, Glover said.

The decision was likely motivated by the results of last year’s presidential election, as verifiable facts demonstrate that rangeland health isn’t in the dire condition that plaintiffs claimed, she said.

“They realized that coming into this next administration, they wouldn’t have that kind of leverage,” Glover said.