Grazing Plan Properly Accounted for Competing Land Uses.

Various environmental groups challenged the defendant's resource management plan (RMP) on 1.3 acres of land in Southwestern Arizona.  The plaintiffs sought to reduce the amount of livestock grazing allowed by claiming that the RMP failed to account for the effects of current and future grazing and competing land uses.  However, the court upheld the RMP noting that, unlike a grazing permit, the RMP was concerned with balancing many competing land uses and that the RMP at issue property considered alternatives that reflected various priorities.  The Bureau of Land Management (BLM)m the court held, made sufficient analysis of the impacts of livestock grazing and properly used its expertise in developing the environmental impact statement.  Western Watersheds Project v. Kenna, No. 12-15110, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 7357 (9th Cir. May 4, 2015).