By Christopher Garrett & Daniel Brunton

On May 27, 2015, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the US Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) grant of a right-of-way over federal land for a road (the Road Project) for a wind energy project developed by North Sky River Energy, LLC (North Sky) on private land (the Wind Project).[1] On the facts before it, the court held that the Wind Project was neither a federal action nor…